Timeless

 

Scanned christmas letter
If my spirit animal was not a sloth (sorry if I just insulted all sloths, some of whom in comparison to me no doubt look down right ambitious) I would have published this hundred and two year old treasure in a more timely fashion, on Christmas eve two years ago, when it was exactly one hundred years old.

Maybe I did, but I’m too lazy to check that out.

It is a letter written to my grandmother, by her grandparents.  Think about that for a minute.  My grandmother would have been twenty five years old in 1912, making her grandparents freaking ancient.  I’m also too lazy to look up their exact ages but it doesn’t matter anyway.  They were grandparents giving a Christmas gift to their grandchildren.  Time goes by and some things hardly change.

The gladsome time of Xmas has again come round and we the undersigned were young once but now are old.  We recollect the wants of  young folks and that often they must go unserved, therefore we thought it our duty to try to do a little for our young people, so concluded to enclose a trifle to each.  Providence having favoured more than normal we thought it but right to divide up a little of that with those whom Providence had used as instruments for our welfare.

Now enclose a trifle for you as a token of our love and esteem trusting that you will benefit in the same spirit as that in which it is given.

We wish you all the compliments of the season and many happy returns and may the Good Lord ever be with you to bless and comfort you. 

The transcription may not be perfect, but the sentiments are certainly clear.  Let me put that into “2014-speak”.

It’s Christmas!  Time for us old geezers (who surprisingly enough still remember what it was like to be young like you) to give you some Christmas cheer in the form of cash.  We’re doing okay, with some extra to share.  It may not be much, but it makes us happy to be able to help you out whenever we can.  Do some little thing for yourself that brings you joy.  Merry Christmas.  We love you and wish you nothing but the best, today and forever.

It’s been a long week off from all things bloggish, but this morning I made a pre-new years resolution to blog every day from now until the end of the year, thinking that was three blog posts, and then realizing it is in fact four.  Still, I think I can handle it.  Even though I’m ridiculously old and lazy as hell.  At least I don’t have to dip a fountain pen in an inkwell and compose something readable without spell check.  Horrors.

All the best of the season to you and yours.

19 thoughts on “Timeless

  1. Me thinks thou are not old. My bedroom slippers are old. My house is old. This year is old but getting ready for renewal. New and improved. Me thinks…new and improved is a good thing…
    Can’t help with the sloth predicament however. Me thinks I’m in slothness too deep and can’t get out. You’re on your own…

    Liked by 1 person

  2. Wow, it’s amazing you have a letter written by your great- grandparents! That in itself is a story!
    I have a few notes from my grandparents– mostly sent when I was in college and they were only concerned that I’d meet a nice boy. Thanks for sharing. And don’t worry about NY resolutions– if I made them, I’d never stick to them. I’m way behind in the blog world too.

    Liked by 1 person

  3. 1. Do you think someone cheated and used lined paper turned slanty underneath their translucent onionskin paper so that they could achieve that perfect penmanship? I know I always needed lined paper under mine, turned the usual way, just so that my lines didn’t start creeping up-up-UP at the ends.

    2. What do you mean “ridiculously” old? Is that when your mental faculties have failed to the point that you start acting ridiculous, or only when you are old enough to realize that you don’t have to give a figgy pudding (it’s still Christmas) if people whose snooty opinions don’t matter think you look ridiculous? (I’m not quite that old yet–I wish I was.)

    I think ridiculously old is when you are an old fart. THAT is ridiculous. You know where they have a ton of ridiculously old people/old farts?

    Fucking Florida®.

    Liked by 1 person

    • I expect whichever grandparent wrote it was just fastidious about penmanship. Have you ever seen old (ridiculously so) writing workbooks where there were pages and pages of repetition until it was damned near perfect? My grandma had beautiful writing, straight as a poker. Perhaps she had her knuckles rapped in the process of learning how to do it.
      My sister and her husband go to Fucking Florida in the winter. They’re not as old as I am. There’s probably a profound point in there somewhere but I don’t know what it is.

      Like

      • I actually felt bad about that missing pound sign, like I had left a big smudge-mark on your nice, clean blog. But it was so kind of you to descend to my potty-mouth level to make me feel better 🙂

        P.S. Try as I might, no matter how many hours of practice with slants and whorls, despite all my A+s in other subjects, I could never earn one A in golly-gosh-darn Penmanship. |: (

        Like

Leave a reply to Outlier Babe Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.