Welcome to... the web version of the 2005 Ferguson's
Christmas Letter.
All content is (C) 2005 by Byron Ferguson.
Christmas 2005
Greetings from the Parker Fergusons- Byron (over the hill), Toni (age
undisclosed under threat of severe injury to the editor), Nolan (8), and Kyra
(8).
This
year, more than ever, the
Ferguson
’s considered doing away
with our Christmas letter.
Not because we didn’t do anything this year, or don’t have time to
write a letter. That’s never
stopped us. No, we considered
canceling because we were afraid. Retailing
giants like Wal-Mart, Lowes, and countless others succumbed to the same fear.
They now sell
Holiday
Trees, have
Holiday
Sales, and wish everyone a Happy
Holiday. No more Christmas
for these corporate behemoths. Is a
Christmas letter worth the potential legal risk?
Should we scrap it in favor of a more p.c. holiday letter?
After about 30 seconds consideration, however, we have abandoned all
reason, and will risk personal
liberty and financial ruin to publish once again the
Ferguson
CHRISTMAS
newsletter- and damned be the consequences.
A Holiday Tree at the White House. This year, after
reading our newsletter, George Bush declared- "No more holiday trees, we're
having a Christmas tree".
This is
the third year that Byron and Toni have produced a play with underprivileged
orphan children. Ok, they’re kids
from the charter school- so they’re not underprivileged, or orphaned- but it
helps us to think of them that way. By
imagining small Olivers, we don’t do something we would later regret, and they
doubly so. This year, Toni and
another mom from the school, Carron Maclean, deftly weaved the tale of the
Emperor’s New Clothes, with the Emperor regaled at various times as “Darth
Vader,” or as the quarterback of the Denver Broncos.
Kyra and Nolan, because of their immense talent and a personal
relationship with the producer and director, were featured predominantly in this
year’s production. Kyra, as little
Sarah, thwarted every attempt by her sister Mary to kiss Young Roland.
And Nolan, as the Underlord of Underwear, mugged about the stage showing
off the fruits of his loom. And,
while both excelled, next year’s roles are more perfectly suited for the two.
Both Nolan and Kyra read with great zeal lines from “A Fairy Tale
Courtroom,” in which the two will play bickering Hansel and Gretel- imagine
that.
Gus the
Saint Bernard, who by the requests for autographed pictures, emails, and phone
calls, appears to be the favorite
Ferguson
family clan member, actually made money this year!
Feeding a horse of Gus’s size often requires a government grant, and
contrary to popular opinion that people actually win money in these shows, the
typical prize at a dog show is only a buck-twenty.
Please don’t confuse this with the reverse- which would be twenty
bucks. Surprisingly, several times
this year, a talent agent requested Gus to meet-and-greet silly rich people at
corporate get-togethers in Beaver Creek and Vail.
For the privilege of petting and being slimed by Gus, these people paid
$200 per hour. This makes Gus better
paid than Byron, which ticks him off since he actually had to go to college to
make what he makes. Now if Toni
could get Gus to work forty hours a week, we could stay home while he
“worked.”
In May,
Toni surprised Byron by purchasing for him, Nolan, and Kyra, a photo opportunity
with William Shatner (the one featured in our Christmas card.)
Byron modeled his entire life on Captain Kirk from Star Trek, except that
he didn’t marry a green dancing girl from Rigel V.
So, meeting William Shatner was a huge thrill.
Byron and kids sat in line for two hours with other trekkies to finally
sit next to “Uncle Bill,” or at least in a chair next to his.
Byron hoped to even ask Capt. Kirk if it was possible for the
Enterprise
to cross phase its dilithium
matrix with its warp core inverters to eek out another 12% from the anti-matter
drive. Instead, when Byron finally
reached the front of the line, he ineptly juggled his Type 1 phaser as he went
to sit down and dropped it. Mr.
Shatner, reached down, picked it up, and handed it back to Byron.
Humiliated, Byron weakly croaked, “Thanks, Mr. Shatner,” smiled, and
moved to the back of the line. Byron
placed the phaser on a small shrine with halogen spotlights and printed a label
from his Dymo, “Captain Kirk touched this.”
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| Dad and Kids with "Uncle Bill." Right
after he dropped his phaser... Wah! |
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Kyra looks about as thrilled as a womp rat.
Nolan, however, is ready to join the Imperial forces! |
In June,
Byron attended Microsoft’s Tech-Ed for work.
The event is an opportunity for thousands of technical elite to learn
lots of really important stuff. I
swear. It’s not just a boondoggle.
In addition, each participant spends hours of their high priced time
listening to the sales pitches of vendors in exchange for some lame $3
tee-shirts. Somehow in the heat of
the moment it seems like a really cool $3 tee-shirt, though.
Since this year’s Tech Ed was in
Orlando
, Toni and the kids tagged
along with Byron but skipped the conference and instead went to Disney World.
There they purchased several $50 lame tee-shirts.
Again, in the heat of the moment they seem really, really cool.
Byron (joined by his sister and her fiancé) took over Disney duties for
the following weekend. Toni, fully
booked for weddings in June, returned to
Colorado
to take wedding photos.
She too makes more per hour than Byron, but since she only works
weekends- alas, Byron must press on.
Toni
also traded in her Dodge Grand Caravan in June.
Toni’d been fed up with it since we traded in her Land Rover Discover
and bought it. Toni purchased
license plates “4MYKIDS” for the mommy mobile, which most people took as a
sweet sentiment, but in fact she wanted her family to be well aware we hadn’t
bought the minivan for her. Toni
left early one Saturday on a quest to locate the perfect PT Cruiser convertible,
but came home with something Byron deemed even more impractical- a Jeep
Wrangler. Apparently, on
consideration, Toni decided that the PT Cruiser just didn’t have room for
you-know-who, GUS. So, Toni brought
home a Jeep Wrangler Unlimited- which is apparently exactly the same size as a
WWII jeep with an extra 15 inches added to the back.
There’s definitely a reason that the
US
military is driving Hummers
now- they’re bigger. Our ability
to haul stuff significantly diminished, Byron was a bit gloomy on the new
purchase to begin with. When Toni
finally let Byron drive the family up
Kingston
trail to the peak at 12000
feet, Byron could be considered hooked. As
required by Jeep law, I must now include this statement:
If you don’t have a Jeep, you
wouldn’t understand. It’s a Jeep
Thing!
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Pano at the top of the world. The Ferguson's with
R.J and Chris in Touregs, Dave Rand in his tricked out Jeep (which later
bailed out one of the Touregs... <Grin>)
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Nolan scoping the trail. "I don't like
heights." |
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No matter where you go, there's always time for snack
time.. |
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Another shot of the intrepid adventurers.
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For the
Fourth of July the Ferguson’s visited
St. George, UT
where it was really hot.
No, I mean it. Really, really
hot. Like 110 or something. Of
course, it was a dry heat- which didn’t really matter, surprisingly.
The
Ferguson’s were visiting Toni’s
uncle Don and his wife Christel. Of
course, we couldn’t drive the completely impractical jeep to Utah-
no!
With gas prices shooting up right after the purchase of the Jeep to
nearly three dollars a gallon, and with the Jeep getting 15-17 mpg, we made the
trip tucked into Byron’s commuter sardine mobile- the Toyota Echo.
Its not as much fun, won’t go up mountains, and is completely boring,
but yes, with a tailwind, it gets almost 42 mpg.
For the 10 hour trip, Byron packed into the tiny interior a power
inverter and our small TV with video player and grabbed a few family friendly
videos from Wal-Mart to play on the trip. Unfortunately,
half way through the first video, Benji, we had to pull over so Toni could hold
Nolan who was crying profusely. Benji’s
girlfriend, the white poodle, had been kicked by the bad guys and lay
unconscious. Nolan refused to watch
any more of the movie till we assured him it all turned out well in the end.
We reassured him, but really neither of us could remember whether it
turned out well in the end - it’s been a long time since either of us watched
Benji. Byron dumped the rest of the
videos- Old Yeller, and the Yearling, by the side of the road.
Nolan’s sensitivity is a hard burden to bear for a little boy.
And at times, Byron wishes he was a tough-shelled son of a biscuit, who
plays football, and steals other kid’s lunch money.
But the son with the heart of gold is quite alright too.
While
Nolan has a heart of gold, Kyra has the heart of a lawyer.
Most of the time, she’s completely unbreakable, cross examines all
suggestions by her parents, and remembers everything.
Kyra claims she intends to be a heart surgeon- but we’re not so sure
sometimes. Kyra is loosing teeth by
the handful, so the Tooth Fairy seems to be getting the brunt of Kyra’s
interrogation. We know if we were
the tooth fairy- which we’re not mind
you, we’d have a hard time remembering to wake up and put stuff under
Kyra’s pillow. Apparently the
tooth fairy has the same problem, is busy, forgetful, out of money, or afraid of
Kyra’s reproach. One of Kyra’s
notes to the Fairy this year read: Dear Tooth fairy, I was
wandering if you could tell if people are going to lose teeth? And do you
take dog teeth? If not, tell me who does and what do you do with teeth?
P.S. Why do you give money? Her
last letter said: I hope you pick up this tooth. It was 11 days last time.
I do believe she intends to file suit.
If the teeth fit, you
must acquit.
In
September, the Fergusons journeyed to the land of cheese and cheese heads (
Wisconsin
), for the wedding of
Byron’s sister- Diane. The weekend
wedding featured numerous events including a golf outing for the guys where the
groom high centered a golf cart on a tree stump (I think the beer cart came by
one too many times), and fireworks launched from the backyard overlooking the
golf course. Toni, ever the great
sport, even shot wedding photos on her own anniversary- one now shared by
Byron’s sister. Of course, Byron
didn’t exactly get out of working at the wedding himself.
Byron, now an ordained minister of the
Universal
Life
Church
, thanks to the Internet,
performed the wedding ceremony. Byron’s
next door neighbor, “a real minister”, rolled his eyes at the online
ordination, proclaiming, “Hey, it took me six years of seminary school to
become ordained.” Byron’s
response? “What a waste!
You could have got ordained on the internet!” Of
course, Byron respects his clergy brethren, wants to attend Wednesday lunches
with them, and is looking forward to receiving his official clergy parking pass.
Kyra and
Nolan began attending the
University
of
Colorado
in
Boulder
in October.
While we wish we could claim the two were savants, as is so typical of
parents speaking of their children in these Christmas letters, the truth is they
were research subjects at the school. CU
runs a large number of twin studies and Nolan and Kyra were invited to
participate. The study on learning
disabilities compares DNA, etc. to try to find genetic indicators for, uh,
learning disabilities. For a day of
their time, Nolan and Kyra got paid handsomely, making them better paid than
their father- again to Byron’s chagrin. Unfortunately,
labor laws prevent Byron from putting them to work full time, or for that matter
even part time in a coal mine.
Since
we’re sending the newsletter out rather late this year, we’ve already
received cards from lots of people. Most
of those people were kind, and thoughtful, but others came right out and
threatened us if Gus wasn’t in our photo this year.
With the exception of one other year, we’ve included Gus every year. None
of the other animals (twenty-five fresh water fish, one salt water fish,
Guinness the Mutt Dog, and Jon-Jon the Chinese Crested) even rank.
Well get used to disappointment- unless you’re a special recipient of a
Ferguson
family calendar- there’s
no picture of Gus this year. We
couldn’t get the latex ears glued to his head so he could be in the Star Trek
picture. Toni’s not in there
either- she wouldn’t be caught dead with a trekkie- except for her husband,
course. Since we’ll be
disappointing so many, we’ve decided to do the picture one better this year.
Assuming we can find a way to get Gus to
New York
since the airlines want a
boatload of money to fly a horse like him, Gus is going to be in next year’s
Westminster Dog Show. Really, I’m
not joking. Monday Feb. 13th.
Check your listings. Or
better yet, fly to
New York
and get slimed in person.
At least I’m sure that a prestigious show like the
Westminster
will have bigger prize.
Oh, wait a minute. Toni
informs me the prize is as always- a buck-twenty.
Wishing
all of you and yours a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS, and the consequences be damned!
P.S. Here’s the tooth
fairy’s response:
Kyra:
No. I only know when the teeth are under a pillow. No one takes
dogs teeth - but the dog don't mind so much. We save the teeth and then
leave them under your parent’s pillow when you are much older, that way we
don't have to store too many. When we started, we gave rocks, but children
didn't sleep so well with rocks under their pillows, so we switched to money -
so kids can buy some candy - or toys, and it seems to help the economy.
Love Tooth Fairy
