He: Maybe we should tweet our Christmas letter this year.
She: We should what?
He: You know, tweet, as in twitter, twitter.com.
She: Is this some strange language, Latvian, Mongolian, maybe?
He: No, no. Twitter is this Internet service where you tell people what you're doing.
She: Tell who?
He: Anyone interested in what you're doing? DOH!
She: That would be precisely nobody, in your case. What does this twitter, tweeter, whatever have to do with the Christmas letter?
He: Easy. we just put the letter out as a tweet. That's what they call a little message that tells people what you're doing.
She: And I suppose that the people that do this are called twits, right?
He: No, they're called tweeple.
She: How sweet. So what 's going to go into this tweet?
He: Well that's a problem. Tweets can only be 140 characters long.
She: Perfect. I'm sure that we can put our whole year into 140 characters. How about "Nothing, boring, boring, nothing, yadayadayada, ho ho ho hum?"
He: No, seriously, we can do this. It just came to me. We put out a tweet about each month on each of the 12 days of Christmas. The twelve tweets of Twistmas. Am I a genius or what?
She: Am I hearing you right? No Christmas cards this year, just a bunch of stupid tweets?
He: Well, I have some, er, not so good news about the Christmas cards.
She: Dare I ask?
He: See, I ordered them from UNICEF, and UNICEF mailed them out, but the post office lost them.
She: Well, call the post office and tell them to un-lose them.
He: Tried that. They looked up the package in the computer and said, "It's lost. Maybe we'll find it. Maybe we won't."
She: Perhaps you could email the post office about it.
He: Tried that. Actually got a reply that said, "We're working on it."
She: "Working on it," eh? Maybe we should take a second look at this twipper thing.
He: That's "twitter." OK, you start, give me our January in 140 characters or less.
She: Hmm, ... "In January, my absolutely perfect son, Brent, who is just as perfect as, but no more perfect than, my other absolutely perfect son, Brad, took an absolutely perfect bride, Za, who is just as perfect as, but no more perfect than, my other absolutely perfect daughter-in-law, Adair."
He: That tweet weighs in a 280 characters. Put it on a diet. You need to get rid of half of them.
She: Okay, okay. How about, "Brent got married in January."
He: That works. My turn. "In February, Jean and I spent a glorious week in the glorious US Virgin Islands, where we planned nothing and did little. We had a grand time and can recommend, absolutely, Virgin Islands Pale Ale. See photos at http://tinyurl.com/5vw2er." 238 characters. Perfect, eh?
She: Only because you didn't spell out "tiny Earl." OK, Here's March. "My very, very dear, dear friends Theo and Ingrid from Belgium came to town and we took them to the Riverwalk but it was raining, so we went to the Buckhorn for some beers and then to Austin for more beers and we saw my stepson, Larry, and our friend Elizabeth, and did I mention the beers ...."
He: You're already at 306 characters.
She: OK. "In March we got sloshed with Theo and Ingrid."
He: Much better. Here's April. "Off to Istanbul in April cruising with Dad. Went to the Greek islands, Sicily, the Balearic islands, and New York, where we saw Spamalot." 137 characters. Yes!
She: OK, May. Sorry, nothing to report for May.
He: How could you? You don't love me any more. [breaks down in tears]
She: What are you talking about? Pull yourself together.
He: How could you forget my Nationals Swim meet? Three National medals. I suppose that means nothing to you, nothing.
She: OK, OK, "In May, Henry, the underachiever came away from a National swim meet with only 3 medals." 88 characters.
He: I'll get you for that. "Nothing happened in June." Hah!
She: "And in July, Albert got back from Europe, we went to the couples' retreat at Laity Lodge, I had a tummy operation, and it worked." Three different events in 129 characters. Yes!
He: Haha, haha! You forgot your birthday. You forgot your birthday. Nanananah! Just for that, you have to take August.
She: OK, add "Jean turned 29." to July.
He: No can do. Too long. I'll put "Jean's 70."
She: You jerk. I'll get you for that. Here's August. "In August, Henry was a jerk!"
He: You can't do that.
She: Yes, I can. You gave me August. September, Mr. Smarty Pants.
He: "September. Another daring escape from Alcatraz. Just over 36 minutes to the mainland. W00t!"
She: W00t? That's not a word.
He: It's nerd talk. An expression of delight. Probably came from "What a hoot." October. You could tweet about my grand church service on food.
She: Or your endoscopy.
He: Or the San Antonio Alefest or Herocamp.
She: Or Neil Diamond. .... OK, here it is. "Henry has no idea what happened in October."
He: November is mine. "Hawaii Senior Olympics. Henry takes 6 golds in 6 events. Dad takes 3 golds in 3 events. Henry turns 66. Huge surprising surprise party on Kauai."
She: You don't want to mention that you two were the only ones in your age groups?
He: Not enough characters for such technicalities. Your turn, December.
She: "In December, the postal service lost all our Christmas cards."
He: You don't want to mention the Great 2008 Holiday Beer Tasting at our place?
She: Why should I? You drank so much beer that you have no memory of the event.
He: Say "Merry Christmas."
She: Merry Christmas, tweeple. Are there any tweeple on our Christmas list?
He: Maybe one.
She: Could you just maybe print this out and send it to our list?
He: Why didn't I think of that?
She: Too much beer.
He: No such thing.