The Schwindt Christmas Letter

2021 Edition

We are adorable. Don’t think so? Are you making comments to your spouse right now, maybe about how we have two unmatched types of flooring in this kitchen, and how this is not a prudent design practice, per Chip and Joanna Gaines? It doesn’t matter. We can’t hear or see you. In our imaginations you are speechless with admiration and you can’t get over how cute our kids are. Maybe you are even a little jealous, but we forgive you because how could you not be?

The intro

Against all odds, we have survived the entirety of 2021. As part of the unspoken social contract, this gives us the right to send out another annual brag-fest Christmas letter.

You might ask yourself why, after a year of virtually no attempt on our part to maintain a human relationship with most of you, why we would foist several pages of sentimental, overly-familiar text on you out of the blue, riddled with inside jokes that will be funny on our end but will only serve to confuse you or maybe even make you a little uncomfortable. And even if you are one of the elite with whom we have had actual personal contact this year, you might wonder why would we make you read a bunch of stuff you already know as if it were “news”.

…I will leave these questions unanswered, since they are imponderable mysteries that we can only hope to ask about when we get to heaven.

For now, let’s just focus on the completely one-sided conversation we’re about to have about the most generic middle-class interesting family in America.

The husband

Daniel works as a web developer. He secretly hopes you will notice how this Christmas letter is itself a website that he designed, causing you to marvel at how awesome this is, at least in comparison to all of your old-style paper Christmas letters, handwritten by the mom of whatever family you are in, since only her handwriting is legible and also because no one else in the family cares enough to put in that kind of effort.

At any rate, you should know that Daniel can pretty much tell what anyone does on his websites. Technology is so creepy these days. So if you stopped reading right at his section and closed your browser window, he’ll know. So maybe just scroll slowly through it, like it is one of those software licensing agreements that you pretend to read just so you can finish your Microsoft Office installation.

In addition to the web design, Daniel continues to write things. Right now he is slowly revising and transferring his epically ginormous manual of philosophy over to an online format for easier management. If you are bored or just looking for a way to punish yourself for something, you can preview it here. Aside from that, he does not publish anything anymore because, as it turns out, he doesn’t actually enjoy talking to people about philosophical stuff as much as he thought he would. Also, as it turns out, other people don’t actually enjoy hearing him talk about philosophical stuff as much as he thought they would. More of those universal imponderables…

Last but not least, Daniel finally has a dedicated reptile room for all of his snakes, and this summer he had his first success breeding and hatching Bullsnakes. Here are a few of his specimens:

The wife

Lindsey is in her third trimester. Her height was always a challenge, but now, so is her weight. She is carrying in the front, and also in the back, and a little on the sides. But she perseveres.

The toddler

Theodore is two. 

The older one

Gregory is four. He attended part-time pre-school this year. We’re homeschoolers generally-speaking but Gregory loves other kids so much that it seemed like a good chance for him to make friends. As for actual learning, his stance in 2020 was that he “does not have a brain” and this was the explanation for various things. In 2021 his argument has become more sophisticated: he now admits to the possession of a real brain but insists that “it is not working very well” and we usually agree with him, although I suspect that he is going to turn out okay in the end.

The pigs

Daniel wanted pigs this year so we bought two. His reasoning was that raising your own meat is more surely more economical than purchasing from the store. Cut out the middle man, right? He performed approximately zero minutes of research in order to confirm this assumption, which turned out to be completely wrong. For starters, he forgot to realize that pigs have to eat. Feed is almost $10 per bag and is consumed at a rate of one bag every 4 or 5 days. Plus the cost of the pigs. Plus the butchering. You do the math, if you want, but don’t tell Daniel the total because he can’t be bothered to think about these things. The bacon is really good though.