The 2013 Scallion!

It's here—the 2013 Scallion!

You can find it here:

2013 Scallion

Merry Christmas, everybody!

History of The Scallion, Part 9: The Rest of the Scallions (2007–2012)

2007. Another holiday season looming. Another Christmas letter hanging over our heads. We'd never repeated ourselves up to that point, but we'd never received so many compliments before. And we are nothing if not slaves to compliments. We measure our self-worth in Facebook Likes.

So we decided to do another Scallion.

What was fun about the second Scallion was that we added a few inside jokes—not enough to alienate most readers, but enough to make a few readers have an extra chuckle. I added my favorite design element—a starburst—just because I knew it would make my designer friends cringe. We started changing up the footers. (Admit it—you didn't even know there were footers.) AND we added pictures. I feel like the pictures—and their captions—are an essential element of The Scallion.

2007 Scallion

So what to do in 2008? Why The Scallion, of course.

2008 Scallion

And yet. Something was still nagging at us. Could we really just do one kind of Christmas letter for the rest of our lives? NO! Thus was born The Shallot.

2009 Scallion

But in the end, we had to go with The Scallion. If you're a loyal—and eagle-eyed—reader, you'll notice that we often repeat motifs. For example, in 2010, we posted a picture of a turtle drawing with the caption "Not the turtle we saw." In 2011, we posted a picture of our niece Margeaux (who is in medical school) looking down Vic's throat with the caption "Not the doctor we saw." In 2012, we'd visited a lot of zoos, and one of the photos is of our grandson Jerrod. His caption? "Not one of the animals we saw." Will that continue in 2013? I know, because draft 1 is complete. You'll find out in a little over a week.

Here are the last three Scallions. The next time I update this blog, it will be to unveil the 2013 Scallion!

2010 Scallion
2011 Scallion
2012 Scallion

I want to thank all our loyal readers (whether for one year, all 14 or somewhere in between) who let us know how much they enjoy and anticipate The Scallion. We do it for your adoration you.

History of The Scallion, Part 8: Birth of The Scallion!

It's finally here. The very first Scallion.

As usual, we were trying to figure out how to not make our dull lives bore the crap out of readers. Somehow we came upon the idea of writing our year in the style of The Onion. So we put our heads together and came up with some story ideas. Then I put my journalism degree to work and wrote a few "news" stories and put my Word skills to the test and designed something that looked like a newspaper. But what to call it?

We had been listening to Christmas music. We love Christmas music (during the Christmas season—we do not love Christmas music starting in October). I have a Dr. Demento Christmas CD. I love Dr. Demento. One of our favorite tracks on that CD is called "Christmas Dragnet" by Stan Freberg. Stan Freberg is awesome. And one of the lines from that track goes like this:

Frank: The missus always fixes a plate of relish with them little carrot sticks. Y'know, olives, pickles, scallions ... Most folks call 'em "green onions," but they're really scallions. Have you ever noticed that, Joe?

And thus was born The Scallion. If you were of a certain age and had really sharp eyes, you'd have seen that line in the footer of the first issue—and understood it.

So now we have a name, we have a format and we have news stories. You know what we don't have? Clever. Witty. Funny. We have comical. Laughable. Mediocre. And not in a good way.

So I give it to Vic. With the replacement of a word here, the suggestion of a new headline there, and the addition of the best quotes and zingers, now we have The Scallion that you all know and—dare I say it?—love.

We sent The Scallion out mid-December, and by Christmas, the reviews were in: The Scallion was a hit.

Read the very first Scallion here:

2006 Scallion

And if you're interested, listen to the entire Christmas Dragnet here:

Christmas Dragnet

History of The Scallion, Part 7

This is one of my favorite Christmas letters ever. The first paragraph tells the story, so I'll just leave it at that.

2005 Holiday Letter

History of The Scallion, Part 6

The 2003 Christmas letter was a hard one to top. We were strongly considering adapting a poem, and we wanted it to be The Raven. We worked on it for literally minutes, and when we realized that all we could come up with was the first line—and we were basically not going to change that line at all—we decided we'd better try something else. I, of course, suggested haiku, but we had just done that in 2002, and how can you fill up a whole letter in haiku anyway?

Suddenly, 'Twas the Night Before Christmas came into my head, and before I knew it, the letter had practically written itself.

Here it is.

2004 Holiday Letter

History of The Scallion, Part 5

OMG! This is really one of our best holiday letters ever! (What, I'm devoting a whole blog to The Scallion and you still think I'm humble?)

First of all, this is the first truly collaborative effort with Vic. His fingerprints are all over this, and we had the best time writing it.

I'm not going to say anything more about it—the letter speaks for itself, and I still have laundry to do.

But (surely you didn't think I could truly end a blog post after three paragraphs) I will say one thing: Not a lot of people put the word "poop" in their holiday letters. We are truly one of a kind. Or two of a kind? Peas in a pod? But not peas, because who likes peas? (And you pea lovers out there—I don't want to hear your defense of peas.) I'm sure you can come up with the reason we put "poop" in our holiday letter.

OK, one more thing (I swear, this is the last): There really was a toilet on the front porch of one of the townhomes we lived in. And that's why we decided to move.

2003 Holiday Letter

History of The Scallion, Part 4

2002: The Christmas Quiz.

I think this was the point that I started realizing a Christmas letter was really a horrible idea because ... that's right ... WE NEVER DO ANYTHING.

Sorry for the shouting.

But 2002 was a watershed year for The Scallion (even though it's not The Scallion yet): I recognize Vic's voice for the first time. I can still identify some of the things he said, even though it's been more than 10 years.

I also notice that my lifelong love for haiku is expressed for the first time in this letter. I am still trying to put haiku into everything I do. In fact, that's how I'll end this post:

When The Scallion is
not yet The Scallion, does it
still exist? Who knows?

2002 Holiday Letter

I am blazing through this! I'll be up-to-date in no time! ;-)