Every year just a few days before Christmas I start looking for the Christmas letter written by the mouse family that lives in our house. Mrs. Cheddar (Mozzarella) is the one who writes it and I’m sure she’s a SHE because she leaves writing it to the last minute. I’m always amazed that she finds the time to write, considering how busy she is.
Well, the letter came today and as usual I love sharing it with you all (with her permission of course).
Dear Friends,
Merry Christmas from Washington State! We hope you all had a great year! As you all know by now, I hate Christmas letters because most of their authors brag about where they’ve traveled and what their kids are doing. I don’t even know half the mice I read about in those letters, but I know they scored big points to win the soccer tournament and that they got straight As.
Our cousin Mickey’s Christmas letter is the worst one every year. He’s so obnoxious. He thinks he’s such a big deal. Just because he’s rich and famous he thinks we can’t wait to read what he and his family are up to. What a bragger! I’m surprised he doesn’t attach a copy of his income tax return so we all know how much money he made. We just got his letter today (that’s what prompted me to write ours).
First of all it ticks me off that he puts his photo at the top of the letter and it’s obvious he’s had numerous face lifts. (How can you not change with time?) Anyway he and his family (he’s on his 79th wife) just “summered” in Aruba and are now on a big deal cheese tasting spree in Wisconsin. Last year they went on a Disney Cruise (on a ship he owns) and his wife got cooking lessons from that rat in Ratatouille (I think his name is Remy). Big deal. I learn all I need to know from Rachael Ray.
34 moves last year!Moving right along. . . speaking of moving we moved 34 times last year! Not to a different house, just different places in Terry and Pam’s house. We love it here! The couple is pretty boring and they don’t make much noise. We share the house with a few chipmunks and Box Elder Beetles and we all seem to get along quite well.
Colby usually picks the spot where we live and I swear last year his thermostat was off because he kept picking places that got hot! At first I thought it might be me (I’ve been having hot flashes lately) but then we realized we were either living in heat vents, next to loud motors that get hot or too close to light bulbs. With our last move, we thought we had settled into the perfect home. It was not too hot, it was not too cold; it was just right-- until all hell broke loose!
Let me back up. We spent a whole month moving into this new place. Colby and the latest litter of kids gutted a Christmas Moose (Pam still stores some Christmas decorations in produce boxes
and they’re a piece of cake to bust into) and lined our new place in wonderful, white, fluffy stuffing while I spent my energy shopping for food. I took an on-line course in Bird Feeder Burglary which really helped me fill our little nest with yummy seeds much faster than last year.
We felt safe in this quiet dark place. Then, a few days ago, I had just got the kids down for a nap and Colby and I started playing a new board game called Cat Mah Jongg when we were BLASTED with the sound of that Christmas tune, "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas!" Where was this earsplitting noise coming from? Pam and Terry’s TV wasn’t on. It wasn’t coming from their radio? It was coming from. . . OUR HOME! It was at that moment I realized we were living in a piano, and Pam was PLAYING it! (I should’ve remembered she only plays that contraption at Christmas time. And I swear that’s the only song she knows.) As she was playing and blasting us with that piercing noise, she hit the keys that were right where the kids were sleeping. Suddenly these big hammers started pounding on their bed and they bounced and flew every which way! Thank God no one was injured! She kept hitting those keys harder and harder because the only sound that was coming out of the piano was thunk, thunk, thunk. (Colby told me later that our bedroom was built on those piano wires at the end of the piano.)
Life is good!
The next thing I heard was, “TERRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” The poor guy came running to her distressed call. “What?” He said. “The piano is broken! Something’s wrong when I hit C D E F and G!” Terry lifted the lid on the piano and discovered our home.
Needless to say, we were evicted and had to find a new place to live. But Colby found a nice quiet getaway in a big boot in Terry’s closet! We’re so very thankful we’re all settled again; because I’m due to have babies any day now and just in time for Christmas. Life is good!
Merry Christmas from Colby and Mozzarella and the rest of the Cheddar family!
