The Most Meaningful Thing My Pig Destroyed

Newsletter 2019-12-22

I’ve always been proud of how my wife and I spaced out our kids. They’re each separated by almost exactly two years, except for Waffle, who arrived after a seventeen month gap because she does whatever she wants. My smug satisfaction with my family planning decisions was shaken, however, when Lola and I hit Christmas program season this week. There were two separate programs, and thanks to the way our kids are spaced out, we had children in both. We had to sit through two programs in a row, which sounds twice as bad as one program, but it’s actually four times worse because the inconvenience is exponential rather than additive. If I could do it all over again, I would have timed my kids so that this never happened. Or maybe I just wouldn't have had kids.

If you've read my latest book, you know I regard Christmas programs as an existential threat. My survival tips include consuming copious amounts of alcohol, but I didn’t follow my own advice. The pageants were in the middle of the day,…