December 16, 2010
“I didn't have time to write a short letter so I wrote a long one instead"--Mark Twain
Writing short is not easy as Mark Twain noted. Perhaps, that is why so many of our annual Christmas letters, mine included, end up being written front and back, single-spaced in a 9-point font.
Stop the presses.
That's too many words, as a college student once remarked when I asked him to read my column. "I can't read that much," he frowned. "I am tired of reading all the time. I am sure it is wonderful but can't you say it in 140 characters? I'll get it."
That is what we have become these days, dear readers. Skimmers; not readers.
Therefore, I challenge you and myself as well to record our favorite Christmas and New Year's memories by writing them down using only six words.
Here is how this works.
Sometime ago, I wrote a column about telling a story in six words. It was about an article I read in a magazine story, "Really short stories in half a dozen words" by Larry Smith.
The idea was based on Ernest Hemingway's famous six-word story, "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."
Subsequently in their 2009 December issue, the same AARP magazine published a follow-up story: "Holiday Traditions in Half a Dozen Words."
Naturally, I could not resist creating some of my own, but first, let's look at a few six-word holiday traditions their readers submitted.
My favorites:
* Dad was Santa; Mom was exhausted. (Pam Figge of California)
* Eating at the big people table. (Terese Haynes of Florida)
* Grandma's grater. Scraped knuckles. Delicious latkes. (Anita Frimere of New York)
Our own holiday memories may be strictly personal and make no sense at all to anyone other than close family and friends. Still, I like the idea of remembering this special season with our own six-word family stories. If nothing else, they could serve as a headline for our long two-page Christmas letters or as a verse added to a Christmas card.
Here are some that are meaningful to me.
* There's no Christmas in the Army. (What my mother used to say when she recalled her own WWII days and quoted General Waverly from the 50s classic "White Christmas," her favorite movie.)
* We are booked for the holidays. (Same movie but different meaning. Now, it is what the airlines tell us if we try to book a trip too close to the holidays.)
* Missing Cousin Gene on Christmas Eve. (He's been gone 5 years now, and I miss his laugh and the same-old story about how bad his Frigidaire is and how he wants me to keep the coffee brewing.)
Tell me yours; love to hear.
Can you say them in six?
Sayings, memories, stories you hold dear.
