Dear You and Your Family,

Hi everybody out there that is our friend or family and stuff! We (the Longpokes that means Mom and me and Tim even though he ran away) hope you are happy and all that. :)

I got your e-mail for e-mailing from my Mom. Mom asked me to write the letter by e-mail. She says it’s more green that way and I’m a good writer and I’m good at Internet and observant and stuff. But for real I think maybe it’s because we are living simplified which means more TV dinners and not so much money for stamps and envelopes and shoes.

Anyways, Mom said I am supposed to tell you about all the good things that happened in the last year. I can’t remember that far back really. So maybe the good stuff in the last week or month? Well my rash went away mostly. My teacher told me I was a smart kid and something about miracles can happen. Whatever, she’s weird and smells like cheese.

The other really good thing is that we still have cool lawn decorations even though we like are living a simplified life. We don’t have Internet anymore either because we are living simplified. I had to go to the library to write this which is sucky because the same homeless guy that I swear stole Stinky so he could eat him is looking at me like he wants to eat me too because I am on the free Internet not him.

Anyways it’s important to have good lawn things because we live on Candy Cane Lane and all the neighbors decorate their lawns and stuff and everybody comes and drives slow to look.

Since we are simplified we didn’t have any money to replace the giant wooden Hanukkah menorah Tim drove the van into last year. But the cool thing is Mom came up with an idea that we wood dress up and take turns being decorations. Then Tim ran away because he didn’t want to be the nutcracker. Mom doesn’t know and he made me promise not to tell but he lives at the hostel in Monterey and I think has a new Italian or French or German or something girlfriend that is like 5 million years older than him. He says she has made him a real man. Whatever.

I don’t know if I’m supposa say that but Mom told me that I could write whatever and she would read it later and make everything OK for the holiday e-mail.

Anyways, even though she told me that I think because she is usually grumpy with tabasco eyes in the morning I will send it cuz maybe when I tell her I already took care of it and clicked send maybe she will cheer up because I handled it like a grown up on my own.

I think the simplified life makes her grumpy. I don’t mind so much. I still have friends and my family and even though I miss Stinky I get to go to Grandma’s for a week break soon. She makes me cookies. I love cookies. =)

Your Friend, Chuckie