I write this letter at our palatial estate located in the Greater Hartland Area.

Outside the wind blows enthusiastically, filling our recently cleared drive with snow. The white landscape is beautiful and makes this lifelong Minnesotan think of Christmas by taking my mind off heating bills. I’ve been carrying hot potatoes around. They’ve really cut down on our heating bill, but I’m hungry all of the time.

This letter begins with weather because all our conversations begin that way.

It’s hard to believe that it’s Christmas already, but it must be. I’ve just heard “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” for the 4,367th time.

I know that some of you haven’t heard from us since last year. A Christmas card is like a message in a bottle. It’s sent out to let others know that we’re still alive. It’s been a good year. We’ve been busy, but somehow we’ve found the time to grow a year older.

I look forward to stopping at my mother-in-law’s home. I hope that she will do the trick that my wife mentions. My bride tells me, “My mother climbs the walls when you visit.”

I’ve watched the Christmas movie trilogy–Christmas Vacation, It’s a Wonderful Life (Today, it would be solved with a government bailout.) and A Christmas Story (A major award!).

I have been shopping like Bill Clinton trying to make Hillary forgive him. I realize that there is no child complaining that Christmas has become too commercialized and I am hoping for a Christmas bailout.

I littered the house with hanging lip lilac. Some people call it mistletoe. My wife sprayed it with an herbicide.

I discovered that thin strips of duct tape make great self-adhering tinsel.

Most of my wife’s family made bail. Her favorite cousin (Who might be the Governor of Illinois, I’m not saying.), who you likely saw on TV and read about in the newspapers, will be taking time off from work. He seemed so nice. It’s always the quiet ones. Her nephew likes to play “Jingle Bells” on the push buttons of our phone. The telephone company tells me that our bill has set a record.

I’ve taken up whistling. My wife insists that I whistle outside. I don’t mind. I love to whistle and watch the neighbor’s dog run to the end of its chain and gag itself.

I vowed to eat fruitcake. We pick on that foodstuff and claim that it is best used as a doorstop. I find it delectable when compared to lutefisk. You never know a man’s true character until you’ve eaten lutefisk with him. The windshield scraper has become my best friend. Be sure you eat that fruitcake before next Christmas. Ingest it right after you’ve used it for a windshield scraper — it’s at its most tender then.

I heard “Joy to the World” by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and recognized that there aren’t many better companions on a blustery December night than the thoughts of those who are important to me.

Each year, we had oyster stew on Christmas Eve.

I didn’t like oyster stew very much. The broth was good and those tiny little crackers were wonderful, but who determined that oysters were edible?

Dad liked oysters or at least he claimed he did.

I whined to my mother that I didn’t want to eat the oysters.

She would tell me, “You eat them. You know how your father is. Those presents under the tree could go back to Santa. I will put just one oyster in your stew. You eat it.”

Well, one was worse than none, but I ate it. I swallowed hard. One year, I decided that chewing it would be better. It wasn’t. There was gravel or something similar in the oyster.

Before eating my oyster stew, I said a silent prayer hoping that my mother had forgotten to put an oyster in my bowl. But she never did.

Then one year, fortified by an abundance of tiny oyster crackers, I slurped my way toward the finish. I knew that somewhere in those murky depths, there lurked an oyster. No oyster appeared early in the spooning. I thought perhaps it was an undersized oyster—a case that would warrant celebration. Buoyed by such a possibility, I quickly found the bottom of the bowl. The bowl was oyster-free. Angels sang. I was convinced that my mother had forgotten.

Then I looked up at my father. He had a smile like a wave across a slop pail as he looked back at me and said, “Merry Christmas.”

The Queen B and I hope that you get only what you want this Christmas. Merry Christmas.

Hartland resident Al Batt’s columns appear every Wednesday and Sunday.