'TIS THE SEASON TO FEEL INADEQUATE by Dorothy Rosby

'TIS THE SEASON TO FEEL INADEQUATE

Dorothy Rosby

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GENRE: Humorous Essays

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BLURB:

Christmas comes but once a year; chaos never ends! Happy Halloween, Merry Christmas and joyful Lumpy Rug Day. That’s real, by the way. Lumpy Rug Day is celebrated every May 3, though “celebrated” might be too strong a word. It’s the American way to create a celebration for everything, then turn it into a chore or worse, a nightmare. ’Tis the Season to Feel Inadequate is a collection of humorous essays about how we let our expectations steal the joy of Christmas and other holidays and special events. It’s understandable for those who think Christmas form letters can be honest—or they can be interesting. And it’s empathy for anyone who’s ever gotten poison ivy during Nude Recreation Week or eaten all their Halloween candy and had to hand out instant oatmeal packets to their trick-or-treaters.

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EXCERPT

from the essay: Merry Christmas from the Envyofall Family

There are two things that make me feel like a boring person. Actually, there are more than two, but the ones that come to mind this time of year are writing a Christmas letter and reading everyone else’s.

When I write a letter I come to the painful realization that the year has flown by and I’ve been terribly busy but I haven’t done a thing worth mentioning. Worse, when I read all the newsy holiday letters I receive I think the writers must have had more days since last Christmas than I had, and apparently more money, energy and ambition as well.

I don’t think I’m alone in my feelings of inadequacy either. Consider the following actual letter I made up. You’ll see in brackets what an unfortunate reader might be thinking as she reads this holiday greeting from the Envyofall family.

Merry Christmas from the Envyofalls!

We hope your year was as wonderful as ours was! [I’m pretty sure it wasn’t.] We started the year with a January vacation in Hawaii. [Now I know it wasn’t.] Since the children are both doing so well in school we decided taking them out for two weeks would be acceptable, and they enjoyed themselves thoroughly. [I’ll bet their teachers did too.]

In June Maxwell and I celebrated our twentieth anniversary with a month in Italy. [What a coincidence! My husband and I celebrated our anniversary in June too—at the Olive Garden.] You can see photos of both vacations on our family website. [You can see our vacation photos too—if my phone is working.]

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Topic: Author's choice
I was recently asked if it’s harder to write humour in these difficult times. I said, “Are these difficult times?” No, I didn’t say that. No doubt about it, these are crazy times. And I was as surprised by my answer to the question as the person who asked it. I said no it isn’t harder—at least for me.
And after giving it some thought, I think I understand why. Along with being an author, I’m a blogger and humor columnist whose work runs in newspapers throughout the West and Midwest. That means I have frequent deadlines. And as much as I love to hate them, deadlines are a gift for a writer. Because of deadlines, I have to be disciplined and because I’m disciplined, I have a daily writing routine. Writing is the best cure there is for writer’s block., whatever is causing it.
And also, because of deadlines, I’ve taught myself to be on the lookout for ideas everywhere and to honor them by making a note of them whenever and wherever they show up. I remember at some point during the pandemic, I realized that rather than shutting down to ideas and inspiration, I was on high alert for them. The circumstances were so different than what I was used to that I was paying more attention than usual, and not just to the news, but to my behavior and the behavior of other people.
And it works for more personal difficulties too. In fact, I’d say the most annoying things that happen may make the best stories later. I remember being stopped for speeding once. Okay, more than once. But this particular time, I took out the little notebook I always have with me and started making notes for a humor column about getting a speeding ticket. The officer was probably a little surprised to see me writing when he came back from checking for my outstanding warrants or whatever they do back there. I didn’t have any, by the way.

Sure, I was stressed. But I think that made me more alert and observant. And anyway, I had a deadline coming up.

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Dorothy Rosby is an author humor columnist whose work regularly appears in publications throughout the West and Midwest. Her humour writing has been recognized by the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, the National Federation of Press Women and the South Dakota Newspaper Association. In 2022 she was named the global winner in the Erma Bombeck Writers Competition in the humor writing category. She’s the author of four books of humorous essays.