Christmas 2008

For years, our washing machine provided the opener for this annual letter. As loud as a jumbo jet, the antiquated old doll gave us annual entertainment. A few years ago, I replaced her with a top-o-the-line front loader, and laundry stories, well, dried up. This new gal is ... BORING. I feared that I'd wrung out all of the amusing anecdotes that I could. The laundry was all washed up for holiday openers.

Christmas 2007

It has been another boring year in the washing machine department. The washer performs its functions as expected. Even the laundry is under control. I do about 15 loads of laundry each month, which is practically nothing compared to the Duggar family who average 200 loads. I heard about them on the news when they added baby number 17 to their family!

Christmas 2006

For years, I owned a washer with a colorful personality, and her antics traditionally introduced my holiday letters. with the purchase of a front loading jobbie, I thought those frivolities were all washed up. However, I recently stumbled on The Laundry Theory of Relativity, which is that each additional person increases the laundry by three. When Corey and I married, I naively assumed that the addition of one person would mean twice as much laundry. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that there was four times as much laundry. I concluded that it was due to the fact that Corey was larger than me. One of his shirts equals three of mine in sheer real estate. Ha. When Alex was born, I naively assumed that since he is small he would increase the laundry load by a small factor. It turns out no diaper effectively contains baby mustard, and his emissions produce abundant laundry.

Christmas 2005

No washing machine stories this year. Only this comment about the laundry:

Some Agreements are made to be broken. For example, my parents have an unspoken Agreement that only women wash clothes. I was skeptical that men even knew how to wash clothes and watched him closely the first few times he did it. He does it just fine … now about folding laundry….

Christmas 2004

Another year has come and gone, and so has another large appliance. As you know, our oft discussed propeller-imitating mashing machine left our home last year. Her replacement, a quiet, efficient, and gentle front-loading washer presents quite a problem as I pen this letter. Without the cantankerous old girl, I’m at quite a loss for a staid salutation. Indeed, I could speak of her mismatched partner—the dryer. Faithful to the end, this machine dried quietly and efficiently all her days—but that makes for a very boring story. The dryer departed our home this year to make way for a match to last year’s front loading washer. Both have performed their duties in an excellent manner (for which I am grateful) but that makes for a dull Christmas greeting. We pray that 2005 will grace us with a significantly entertaining equally banal topic.

Christmas 2003

I’m sure you all are wondering about how the washing machine has fared over the past year. Unfortunately, the dear old gal saw her last spin cycle in our home this year. Yes, in May, I purchased a new fandangled front loading jobby. My, oh my! is it a honey, though. Not only is it 1000 times quieter, it uses less water, washes more clothes, and is a kinder gentler machine. We can now wash clothes all night without having the neighbors call the police to report a public disturbance.

Christmas 2002

I realized that I did not send a Christmas letter last year due to a computer melt down that took about three months to resolve. So, sorry. Because of that, I imagine that you are on pins and needles wondering about how the washing machine has faired over the last two years. I think it has was developed anger management issues because it has gradually improved its ability to function with an ever increasingly high-decibel-spin-cycle: (yell the following quickly, and repeatedly to get an idea) “Clanck-clanck-clanck-clank-clank-ching-ping-ching.” Closing the laundry room door dampens the cacophony, but a jumbo jet take-off can hardly compete. Gratefully, it cleans the clothes.

Christmas 2000

I imagine that you are awaiting an update on the state of our washer and dryer. As you recall, last year I experienced a pang of concern over the possibility that Christi and I would move to separate places and that we would have to divide the mismatched pair. Fortune smiled on us and we both moved to Utah and continued to room together. The odd-couple pair was enabled to remain together for another year. Fortune continues to be our friend as both the washer and dryer continued to function. The dryer has begun to make a faint grinding sound, and the washer continues to sound somewhat like a helicopter preparing for take-off, but if we shut the louvered door to the laundry closet, we hardly hear them. OK, so techinically, they are still quite loud, but we pretend that the laundry closet is made of sound dampening materials.

Christmas 1999

In March, I contracted Christi's illness: the whimsical idea to move entered my mind I brushed it off as a passing fancy, took two metaphorical aspirins and resolved to wake up in the morning cured. The idea did not leave me, and after pondering it properly, I decided that I would move as soon as the school year ended. After telling Christi, she decided that her time had finally come and that she too would move. Like pilgrims on a hajj to Mecca, we both wanted to move to Utah. I arrived in my big orange U-haul in June; she followed in her bigger orange U-haul in July. Thus, we solved our problem about what to do with our communal property (the washer and dryer). See, it would have been a real dilemma: Do we split the pair up? Who gets the locomotive-imitating washing machine? Who gets the faithful and true dryer? Do we sell them and split the "profit?" Since we continued to room together, we could effectively postpone our decision perhaps indefinitely.

Christmas 1998

My Christmas letter this year begins were last year's left off. I realize that you have been on pins and needles to know the Continuing Saga of the Washing Machine. As you recall, last year's big event was the purchase of our second used washer. As the year drew to a close, that antiquarian creature was sounding mildly like a locomotive. Another year has passed and miraculously, our locomotive continues to wash. The mild inconvenience of it is that we can only wash one pair of jeans or one towel at a time, or else the spin cycle does not work. Needless to say, doing laundry was much faster when, as a child living in the jungle of the Solomons, I helped my mother wash clothes in the river by beating them against a rock. Ah ... modern conveniences.

Christmas 1997

The year started off with the arrival of a large object at our house. It was necessitated by the sudden and untimely demise of our washing machine. Somehow, a locomotive took up residence in the motor of this antiquarian creature. For the last few weeks of its life, it sputtered and chugged, then finally gave up the ghost and washed no more. Our friend, Eric, the ex-washing machine repairman said the transmission was to blame. Would that be a stick shift or an automatic? I was the lucky roommate chosen to purchase another machine. I found on in the backyard of another washing machine repairman. This one had been entirely rebuilt, he claimed. I saw his "parts department:" the carcasses of 10-15 washing machines that littered his backyard. He wisely advised me to remove and save the working parts of our dead washing machine. Thus it is, that we have begun the American tradition of building our own junk collection. This collection of used lawn mowers, partially functioning bicycles, boxes and other treasures we keep (just in case we need them) in our garage, just like any good American family should. Interestingly, the rebuilt machine is making sounds slightly reminiscent of a locomotive.