The most honest holiday card I received this year started out with a bit of Christmas blasphemy: "Bah Humbug" it read, followed by a litany of recent woes:

"I went Christmas shopping today and a woman backed out of her parking space and whacked my car...Billy broke his ankle skateboarding. It required an operation and two screws. That's the good news. The bad news is that he's still skateboarding...Cal lost his job last March...We lost half our life savings in the stock market. Now when people ask my kids, 'How's your mom? They reply, 'She's never going to be able to retire.'"

A pretty bleak picture indeed.

But my friend goes on to say that her car is still drivable, Billy likes looking at the X-rays of the screws in his bone, Cal found a job in October, and her older son was transferring to an in-state college ("He always kind of wanted to go to UGA anyway"). And as for retirement, she is really quite thankful to have a job.

"Looking back on the year, it was a pretty good one after all," she writes, reminiscing about her son's high school graduation party, a visit to Nova Scotia with her cousin, a trip to Mexico with her college buddy (that would be me!).

"And I just finished decorating my tree. It's beautiful. Wishing you a wonderful Christmas, and health and happiness in the New Year."

I couldn't have said it better myself.