so this is christmas.

You know those Christmas letters that people send along with their Christmas cards? Filling you in on how their family is doing, what's going on, milestones from the past year? Everyone makes their lives sound much more wonderful than they actually are, we know this. Like when people ask me how married life is and I say good, what I really mean is this is not a fricken fairytale. In Hello from the Gillespies by Monica McInerney, Angela Gillespie has decided to make the first draft of her Christmas email (this is the 21st century) ring of truth this year. While writing about her dysfunctional family was super therapeutic, (we're talking affairs, personal fantasies, delusional children), she didn't mean to actually send it to anyone. So when it accidentally gets emailed to over 200 of her closest family and friends because her husband is a big fat dummy, shit hits the fan pretty quickly. Some characters you'll love, some you'll want to slap. Either way you will no longer feel guilty about lying in your annual Christmas letters.