Holiday Update 2009

Ok...so my Mom has been asking me when I am going to update the blog!?! I just did it! :) Here is a copy of my recent Holiday letter that was enclosed in the Christmas cards....

Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanza, Happy Hanukkah,
Happy “Winter Break”, Happy New Year...
What ever you celebrate this time of year –
Have fun celebrating it!

Well, well, well. Here we are again! The year 2009 was so much like 2008, it was hard at times to even tell a difference! It all started with January, just like the year before. And before we knew it, February came along and then March. Our plucky yet uber-intelligent and gifted and talented children soon recognized the pattern, and we were able to confidently predict April and May. It was all downhill after that, barely even a challenge! David a future mathematician pursuing a PhD and an office all to himself, soon hypothesized that Christmas would fall in December this year, and sure enough, here I am writing to you and it will be Christmas soon (in December!!!).

Our children have excelled in absolutely everything this year, embarrassing themselves (and everyone else) with their extraordinary abilities. Fortunately, they have level headed and objective parents who maintain their feet firmly on the ground. We do, however, have them attend elocution and deportment classes in preparation for the various prize and award ceremonies we anticipate they will have to attend over their lifetimes. They have been enrolled in Swedish language classes for some time, because, after all, we would hate for them to be at a disadvantage when they travel to accept their Nobel Peace Prizes!

We were able to squeeze a little traveling in this year in between the children’s studies. We started in Aspen, went to Belarus, the Congo, Denmark, Ethiopia, the Falklands, Greenland, Holland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Venezuela and Zaire. Our trip sailing our new yacht around the world was a great experience for the kids. We learned to communicate with the dolphins and even discovered a new region of deep water volcanoes.

I, of course, am still the envy of everyone with my perfection. Martha Stewart will be visiting our estate next week to get some more recipe ideas and decorating tips from me. She is just lovely and I enjoy teaching her many of my tricks, so they may be passed on to the more “common” folks around the country. In other news, I will begin an ancient Greek class next year, so I can see if the Bible was properly translated.

Brad has been immersed with another graduate study program. He has managed to co-author a paper on Multidimensional Customer Attribute Analysis by Conjoint Survey and has accepted a Nobel Prize for his discoveries in Quantum Physics. We are proud of his work serving on the Board of Directors of IBM, Coca Cola, and Walt Disney.

Well I could go on, but I don’t want you to feel inadequate at this very special time of the year. I do hope you have reached at least a few of your objectives and performance indicators you have set for yourselves.
Much love to you all, and do feel free to bask in the glow of our glory….

The Arton Family

Maybe I should explain...when I was younger, my parents had a friend that would send out a two page Holiday letter that was not a joke but a real bragging letter about everything their kids did for the year. Every year, when the Christmas Cards started arriving, we would look for theirs! This is my lame attempt of copying their annual holiday update! :)