In this season when those annual Christmas letters full of accomplishment and holiday cheer fill our mailboxes, Roy Peter Clark imagines one coming from the wife of a bought-out newsie.  Please attach your own versions (real or imagined, but please tell us which) in the feedback area below.


December 25, 2006

Dear Friends,

We're sorry to be a little late with our annual holiday letter, but it's been downright crazy around here these days, especially with Brad's new job as the public information officer for Peace on Earth Inc. Brad jokes on the golf course with his old newspaper buddies about how he never imagined that one day he'd turn into a "flak," but I can't tell you how many people have come up to me to say how good Brad looks.

I guess I didn't realize how his old job with the Gazette had worn him down and all. He used to tell me that he never wanted another job in the whole world than to be the city editor of that old newspaper. But it did not turn out to be the job he dreamed of, let me tell ya'.

You may have heard what's been going on with the Gazette Company. Circulation and advertising have been down, and, with all this Internet stuff going on, I guess that's not what the bean counters want to hear. So there's talk about selling the company. I swear it looks like one of them fire sales at a shoe store on Main Street. They've been laying off people year after year now. Cut, cut, cut. Brad said he was lucky to have a job with the newspaper at all. But I could see that he had lost a lot of that famous old Brad piss and vinegar.

They'd lay off more and more people, and he and the kids that work for him -- because they have a lot of pride -- would just work harder and harder. For all those years he'd get home about 7 p.m. and we'd open a bottle of wine and have our dinner. But then he started coming home at 8 p.m. and then at 9. Those of you who know him know that Brad is no complainer (except on the golf course!), but I felt so bad for him when he'd get that look in his eye and start yelling that after they cut the fat they decided to cut the muscle, and now they were sawing into the bone.

But it turns out that "they" finally did something right. They offered buyouts to some of the older people on the staff -- to save money, I guess. And to my surprise, Brad took one, a whole year's salary. Ain't we hot stuff. (Maybe we'll get to put that deck I've been wanting in the backyard.)

If Christmas is the season for renewal, then I have to say Brad looks like a new man. He works a straight eight-hour day, and is thinking of teaching a night course at the local community college. He says the public relations work isn't so bad. He likes his co-workers, and none of them talk as if the sky is about to fall any minute. He says that they are going to send him for a week of training in Florida, which seems like a miracle to him since he wanted that with the newspaper, but no dice back then.

And guess what? We're having dinner together then, which I enjoy more now that he doesn't have that look in his eye any more.

I've been rambling so much about me and Brad that I forgot to tell you about our daughter Lucy, who is now a sophomore at State College. Talk about miracles: her grades are really good, and there's even some talk of a new (used) car in the picture. She's written a couple of stories for the school newspaper, but Brad says not to worry. She'll get over that in no time.

With presents to wrap and a husband under the mistletoe, off I go for another year.

Cheers,

Mary Ellen 

Roy Peter Clark is vice president and senior scholar at The Poynter Institute. He is the author of the new book "Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer."