Ron's Blog

It’s that time of year again. The leaves have fallen, the stores are packed, and people are flipping me off in traffic. Ah, the sights and sounds of the holidays. There’s nothing quite like the annual tradition of credit cards dancing and bank accounts leaping. One thing is for sure. These good tidings go on much longer than twelve days. In fact, one of my neighbors hasn’t taken his Christmas lights down since the Roosevelt administration (Teddy, not Franklin).

Anyway, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I think the bar for holidays was set by Thanksgiving. There are no gifts, no decorations, and no expectations—except to eat and drink yourself into a stupor. That’s a pretty low bar and except for the tense political conversations around the dinner table, it’s an easy holiday.

But, that’s not how Christmas works. There are lots of gift and decoration expectations in preparation for the season of noel. I find myself getting just a tad bit anxious each year as November comes to a close. And by “a tad bit”, I mean I start to go nuts, feeling like my chest is roasting by an open fire.

You see, my primary holiday responsibility is to write our annual holiday letter. I’m sure you are familiar with this ritual. It’s a chance for adults to send a recap of their year to all of their friends and family. In it, they brag about their A-plus children, their career success, and the trips they took to every US state and territory. The letter is always accompanied by a family photo, in front of a fireplace, with everyone wearing matching sweaters. If a small font is used in these letters, they can be contained on one sheet but when it’s written in a font size that people my age can read, it must be bound at a local printer before being shipped out.

Early in our marriage, Wendy and I decided that we wanted to take a slightly different approach to our holiday letter. Oh sure, we still wanted to highlight our A-plus kids and our career success but we wanted to do it with a little tongue-in-cheek flair. So, we sent the letter from our dog, Spike. Everything that happened that year was from his perspective. And since I am recognized as the most clever (and humble) person in the family, the duty of writing the annual letter fell to me—since obviously, Spike was not really up to the task.

In the first few letters, our dog (actually me, in case this is getting confusing) shared such witty canine commentary as, “I need more people food than they’re willing to give me. But they are a bit more casual about letting things drop to the floor.” Or this clever insight after our daughter was born: “I contacted D.A.B.B. (Dogs Against Bothersome Babies) but they said you can’t return these things.”

Yes, it was clever, funny, and I had a pretty good run—until 1996, when Spike died. It was sad that we lost our pet but in the back of my mind, I was terrified that I had lost my vehicle for the holiday letter. Someone suggested I should still write the letter from Spike but have it come from Heaven. I thought that was weird and I wasn’t even sure that’s where Spike was. So, by the end of November 1996, I was a nervous wreck.

And then it hit me. I thought, What if I zig when everyone else zags? Rather than a typical holiday letter, maybe I could create a piece of literary irony that’s not a letter at all. 

The more I considered it, the more brilliant it seemed. I chuckled to myself as I considered that people wouldn’t even know what to do with this stroke of yule genius. 

And so, starting in December of 1996, I created something totally unique that only resembled a typical holiday letter because we were still bragging. However, the pomposity was disguised by the clever vehicle of the letter.

The first year, I created the Culberson Gazette, modeled after a newspaper. There were headlines, op eds, and the lede story was an obituary entitled, “Famed Author of Previous Holiday Letters Has Died.”

The challenge of this new format was that each year, the letter had to change. For instance, one year, it was a high school yearbook where each member of the family had a page displaying their accomplishments, superlatives, and future dreams. Another year, there were four “Wanted” posters, one for each of us, with descriptions of our “crimes” (accomplishments) for that year. One of my favorite ideas came after the contentious 2000 presidential election. Our “letter” that year looked like a Florida voting ballot with hanging “chads”. The candidates on the ballot were the members of our family.

As the years went on, our cards got smaller (due to less bragging). This led to more compacted concepts that included short poems, riddles, and one year, we sent a crossword puzzle where the recipients would have to fill out the puzzle to find out what we did that year. I received several emails after the crossword puzzle card because people couldn’t figure the clue that my wife was “a younger version of this at church.” It meant that she was an “elder.” I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed stumping people.

So, why am I telling you all of this? Well, for one, because we are now in the midst of my holiday writing time. Once again, I’ll have to come up with a clever theme for our card. Maybe it will be based on something that’s currently happening in our world such as the intolerance of tolerance or maybe I’ll do the whole thing using AI. I’m not sure what it will be but I’ll get started on it shortly.

The other reason I’m telling you this is that it represents a path that I’ve taken throughout my life. I’ve tended to zig when others zag. For example, when people told me to raise my speaking fees, I lowered them and made more money. When COVID hit, I leaned into it and became an EMT. And when someone suggested that I could be a speaker for the rest of my life, I decided, well, that I didn’t want to be a speaker for the rest of my life.

So, at the end of this year, I will hang up my professional microphone and will no longer give presentations for a living. You see, I always wanted to leave the business when I was still good rather than being forced out of business because I was no longer good. So, I’m trading the lights, the stage, and the glamour of being a humorous motivational speaker for the comforts of home and the pursuit of other wildly fulfilling paths.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not “retiring” form the world. In fact, I am currently producing a documentary called Pep Banned about my college band, the University of Virginia Pep Band, and I’m pursuing my Advanced EMT certification next spring. I will continue to be a firefighter and will also keep writing this blog (although the focus and the distribution process may change).

The bottom line is that I am doing things on my own terms, the same way I chose to create our holiday cards. To me, there’s nothing better than to find your own path. I hope that I’ve been able to do that in most everything I’ve pursued. 

My wish for you is that you embrace your own voice and that you don’t feel compelled to do what everyone expects you to do. Instead, make the most of what you’ve got and use that for the good of others. Perhaps that should be the spirit of every season.

Happy holidays!