Dear the rest of the world, Happy Christmas! It’s time for your annual round-robin letter from the Ireland family.
We know you look forward to getting it every year – or every quarter of a year, as has been insisted upon by the three financial advisers that we turned to for a little help three years ago, only to have them move in with us.
You’ll recall from previous letters that they were an austere trio. During their stay they did little but follow us around while putting name badges on all the food, tutting if we reached for a second glass of wine, and shaking their heads at any shop assistant who asked us, “Do you want any cash back?”
Worse, they did all this while sleeping in the best room in the house.
Anyway, friends, we can bring you good news from the domestic front: the three visitors finally moved out. In fact they left only last week. They were pushing for a farewell party, but we preferred to sneak them out of the back door late on Sunday night.
No sooner were they gone than Dad sat the whole family around the table and told us that he’s in charge of the family finances from here on in and that he has big plans for the next six years.
What those plans are he hasn’t actually told us, but he promises we’ll have a new extension, a full fridge and extra money coming in by 2020. He swore, though, that it has nothing to do with the way his moods swing in five-year cycles.
Several of the kids simply rolled their eyes cynically throughout the whole discussion, or at least that’s what we think they were doing – the Skype connection to Sydney was a bit patchy.
Presidency of
something or other
It has been a busy year at work for Dad. The first six months of 2013 involved some job in Brussels, a presidency of something or other that might have been just one of those silly American-style titles. (We think he was senior vice-president of Lycra a couple of years ago.)
He kept going on about it, but none of us had a clue what it meant then – and didn’t care too much, either. Still, it made him feel important for a while.
After years of bickering with each other, himself and Uncle Eamon seem to be tolerating each other for now, although it helps that Uncle Eamon has finally come through his socialism phase.
Still, we’ve had our ups and downs during the year, such as when we tried to get a local retirement home demolished, only for the locals to keep it open at the last minute. Given that Granny and Grandad were in the retirement home at the time, it has caused a little tension in the house.
Anyway, we look forward to the new year with greater optimism, with hope that the neighbours will finally stop sneering at us over the fence.
We did invite them over for dinner during the year, as a way of showing our gratitude. Some got a bit annoyed that we asked them for cash for it when they got here.
That was down to Little Leo, who is doing well on his tourism course and is the one who came up with that great wheeze for bringing in extra cash. Instead of just having the usual weddings or dinner parties or family reunions, he told us we should call them a “Gathering” and invite as many Americans as possible but – and here was the genius – then charge them for coming.
Although, on the sad side, we lost several members of the family this year, there was some consolation in the fact that the wakes turned out to be great money-spinning opportunities.
In 2014, we’re hoping, we’ll be able to cross that idea with big sister Joan’s business-degree JobBridge project and persuade the visitors to work around the house, for free.
All we need to do is convince them that cutting our grass for us is a vital experience in “Irish landscape awareness and compost management”.
Only joking, of course. We know the Ireland family is famed for not being too taxing on visitors.
Healthwise, it’s been a difficult year, and next year is going to be even tougher. Plus, the entire family is having to get its head around the fact that it must wean itself off pharmaceuticals, which we’ve become dependent on in recent years. Apparently, having been so reliant on Viagra, it’s going to stop working very soon – which will be a bit of a downer.
Anyway, we wish you all the best for the new year, and we hope you like the gift we have included. We had a few lying around and felt we should hand them out to anyone and everyone, regardless of who they are or where they come from. We do hope you get much enjoyment out of your Certificate of Irishness.
Yours seasonally,
Ireland