I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown.

I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown.

I love receiving end of the year holiday letters. Do you?

I'm looking at a collection right now that hit my mailbox early December.

There's something existential and moving about this power.

I love hearing that my friend Jim took up a new hobby last spring,

canoe building on Lake Champlain.

That Janet has a forthcoming art exhibition and that

Carrie's daughter completed her first semester at Stanford Law. On one I strained to make out the many photos crowding the last page.

I think I see a new puppy. I take in the growth of children and family pets, which is what these annual recaps are all about.

Time passing.

Look at us on vacation and the Alps as we all slide toward our last days.

Professionally photographed portraits of families and carefully selected outfits on postcards

prompts me to run my hand over the gorgeously designed

stock paper.

I feel special.

A family thinks highly enough of me to include among their kin, to fill me in.

It's a renewal of our bond, an intimacy and shared spirit of our journey.

Going into next year, we do not need to feel abandoned.

Each year I promise myself that I'll write a letter in kind, but then modesty overcomes me.

I wonder, don't friends, thanks to social media, know enough about me already. My feed is a litany of news and

updates about myself and my family. It is human to be curious about each other's lives to celebrate

...