CARD
(December 25, 2018)
Christmas again, and you discover an envelope that evidently fell when you brought in the mail and slipped under the sofa. You discover it on Christmas morning and fish it out. No return address, odd.
You open it and grin. It's one of those make-it-yourself cards, with a family photo as the image. It must have been taken last year, because the landscape is snowy, the fir trees carrying white burdens of snow. Nice photo, though, taken with the gang in the front and the Mystery Shack in the back.
At the center are Soos and Melody, each bundled up in a fur-collared coat, green for Soos and pink for Melody, and each holding a snow-suited child—Little Soos and Harmony. And you may be mistaken, but Melody may be expecting again! Abuelita isn't there—she spends the winters in Mexico, but somebody, and you think you know who, built a snow Abuelita who looks very much like the real thing, wearing a real apron and standing over a snow vacuum cleaner with her usual contented smile.
Next to the snow figure are Mabel and Teek, in matching bright-red turtleneck sweaters with appliques of holly leaves. Behind them stand Stanley and Sheila, also in sweaters, maroon for Stan and white for Sheila, Stan's with an applique of the Mystery Shack itself, Sheila's with two interlinked hearts. Stan, the old joker, grins impishly as he makes bunny ears over Teek's head.
On the left of Soos stand Dipper and Wendy, cheeks pinked by the cold weather and looking very much in love. Dipper is in a red plaid sweater—a hard one to knit, but Mabel taught herself how—and Wendy, of course, in a green plaid one. Behind them are Stanford and Lorena, Stanford's mulberry sweater decorated with a gold six-fingered hand applique, and Lorena's pale green one with an identical linked-heart applique to the one Sheila wears.
You observe that Dipper and Wendy are the same height at last, two tall and lanky and red-nosed young people. They also look grown up, both of them in college now and doing fine. They still look just like two newlyweds.
Waddles and Widdles, decorated with bright red bows, pinkly dominate the foreground and seem to give you fat piggy grins.
And in red and green letters, inside the card reads, "Christmas is a time to think of friends, and we're thinking of YOU!" The greeting MERRY CHRISTMAS has been personalized with your name in red ballpoint.
Everyone has signed the card. Even Little Soos and Harmony have added what might be called letters, if you're in a charitable mood. And everyone in the card looks so cheerful, well—
You are.
Merry Christmas from Gravity Falls!
The End