I am one of those strange people who speak with their parents every day. I’m on my way home, my mom is on her way home or cooking dinner, and Dad is hanging out in the background. It’s a good thing. We know everyone’s okay, and we all get a little social entertainment to fill the momentary void of human interaction. Yesterday, my dad answered the phone.

The dizzying conversation my father and I have would confuse anyone around us, except Mom. I know she’s back there rolling her eyes and wondering if we will ever act like grownups. No. We like our little inside jokes. After Dad and I had finished our initial bout yesterday, he broke some family news.

One of my aunts had been cleaning up at a museum. She was there by herself putting things away and just generally getting everything back in place. While moving a Christmas tree, she fell, breaking her pelvis. Thank goodness for mobile phones, because she’s doing fine and should be released for rehab soon. Spending time thinking about her last night brought to mind something she sent to the family during Christmastime several years ago.

Everyone must know someone who sends out The Annual Christmas Letter. I don’t know where this tradition started or why. It seems a way for loved ones to shove their happiness and joy down each other’s throat. I dread most of them. I get a range of letters. One is a photo-collage of international vacations. One provides an almost day-to-day recap of amazing activities and achievements. One is a synopsis of all the incredible happiness two people and a dog could stand in one year. They are always bright and happy, highlighting all of the good things and memories you missed out on by not being there. But this one particular aunt once sent a letter which changed our entire family experience.

Let me preface this with the side-note that she is a writer. She spent many years teaching Honors and AP English. She’s well-read and well-written, but this one particular holiday, we each received one fascinating Christmas letter. The tale was intended to celebrate the holiday and to share a specific memory she had of her childhood. It was intended to be a piece of our collective history as a family. What it became was Stephen King’s Carrie, Family Edition.

She recounted the poverty of the family, the joys of a rural morning, and the death knell of the hog. Think about that for a moment.

My aunt sent everyone a letter inside her reverent “Merry Christmas” holiday card which recounted, in detail, her recollection of the slaughter of the family’s dinner. The squeals. The blood. The gory details of it all.

She did not present it as a bad memory. The story was a celebration. She was straight-forward with the information. It was an honest look at growing up on a farm, with a very clear view of the annual pig slaughter presented just outside the kitchen window. This was life.

This was a call for therapy.

Maybe we took it the wrong way. Maybe the details were a bit too detailed. Maybe a Christmas card is not the place to write about a pig meeting its end–even if it were for the family good.

A cousin responded quickly with another letter recounting their detailed memory of the Christmas they received the “slaughter story.” A joyful romp telling of their happiness in seeing the return address on the envelope when they pulled it from the mailbox, the quaint warmth which filled them as looked over the Christmas card, and the visions of terror as they read the letter tucked inside.

My aunt never sent another Christmas letter. One was enough. For no matter what the intended meaning was, as family and friends, we did share in the well-received laughter. Through this bump in the road, and all the others we experience each year, there are shining bright spots which we can share. The best of those being laughter shared with family.