The CCZCC extends its record-breaking streak to 13.
This letter, which Mom started writing on December 26, 1967, covers Christmas Day and a few days on either side of it. Other than the beginning of the letter it's written in chronological order which makes it easy to divide into sections for posting over the next several days.
Dear Mother and Mike,
Well, Christmas has come and gone and we are completely worn out. In fact, I'm really too tired to even take pen in hand so please forgive any grammatical errors, misspelled words, etc. , etc.
[Mom left an "m" out of "grammatical" in that sentence.]
We tried to call you on Monday, but every time we dialed the number a little recorded message told us all lines were busy because of the Christmas rush - so sorry, but we did try! I was terribly disappointed that we didn't get to talk to you, be we still had a good Christmas.
["We're sorry. All circuits are busy now. Please try your call again later." I think that was a semi-regular occurrence back then, especially around holidays or Mother's Day. Thankfully the progress of cell phones means it can now happen at seemingly random times.]
I suppose our "celebration" began Friday afternoon as Dave had that part of the day off. Of course, I wasn't able to greet him at the door because I was busily fighting the traffic at the airport. (Remember? I played taxi cab driver for the Dirrs last week.) Anyway, Dave invited four of the men he works with over that afternoon. I enjoyed meeting and talking with them and one of the men had met Wayne in Austin a couple of years ago. Another one of the men - a bridge playing bachelor - was having a party Friday night and we were invited. We didn't have a babysitter so we took David Wayne, planning all the while to just "drop by" for a minute and then come home. As it turned out, we had a wonderful time, met lots of interesting people (including a doctor who said he'd write me a special permit to fly home), and David Wayne behaved beautifully - everyone commented on how nice he acted. We got home pretty late and all three of us were tired on Saturday, but it was a good kind of tired.
[You don't often hear an unmarried adult male referred to as a bachelor these days, and it would certainly be odd to hear one referred to as a "bridge-playing bachelor." Anyway, I don't know if it was this particular party but I have a vague recollection of going to a party at an apartment complex where there were a lot of people and I didn't know anyone there. I recall being very bored since I may have been the only child, and I think I mostly just hung out outside the apartment with the partygoers who were out there.]
[You probably noticed that Mom mentions flying home in that paragraph. Given her due date and the unknown end date for Dad's assignment, they may have been considering having Mom fly home to avoid giving birth to a foreigner.]
[That's the end of Part 1. Part 2 will cover Christmas Adam and Christmas Eve.]
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