Round Robin II

Last night, I met Dad to go to a beautiful Handel opera at the Barbican. Together with the usual pile of junkmail that he passes on at such rendezvous was Bernadette’s Christmas letter, the one I slated in advance sometime in mid December. It was nauseatingly true to form. Their children are still in excess of perfect, their lives are full of exotic holidays and allegedly brilliant achievements (“Matthew was promoted to Senior Credit Analyst with Bayern LB and continues to evaluate enormous property deals as the London property specialist for his bank. Amanda passed her gruelling Graduate Training Programme teaching qualification with flying colours.” etc) and they are just orgasmic at the thought of being grandparents. “Felicity and James are now enjoying the different stages of him smiling and gurgling.” (There are stages of smiling and gurgling?)

Nothing ever goes wrong. The fact that Bernadette lost one of her best friends and colleagues in April to cancer was of course entirely forgotten: there is no gloominess in their utopic world. But how insulting to send this letter out to my father, with their last line about how they are looking forward “to a real family Christmas when we are joined by Catherine and Robert (whoever they may be), Claire and Mark (likewise), Matthew and Amanda, Felicity and James and Benjamin” – when a “family” Christmas is something that we will never be able to have again. People don’t want to read this purified, exaggerated and highly spun nonsense – it’s nothing more thoughtless, offensive crap.

REBECCA