[A satire, by Ann Green.]

Friends! Comrades! Womyn united across cultures!

I am empowered once again to send along our annual inclusive greetings at the approach of the Winter Solstice. We in the Hyphen-Hyphen Family continue do our part to make a less warming world, to honor the voices of the voiceless and to celebrate diversity with redistributive justice and net neutrality for all! This year we're gifting everyone with carbon offsets for whatever holiday they choose or don't choose to celebrate. Not only is this the best thing we can do for the environment, but there's no need for wrapping paper! Also, with not one incandescent light bulb left in our home and the first emergency mercury sweeper system in the neighborhood, we feel we have a lot to be proud of.

My husband Alger is optimistic about his on-going quest to heat our home by a combination of solar panels and windmills. The roof is a bit crowded, but, like all great endeavors, it will take some time to work out the kinks. Havana wasn't built in a day, you know! Maybe it would be easier if we didn't live in a condo. Solar power to the people! He also continues to work on his project to make our cat Chomsky hypoallergenic.

I'm pleased to report that our daughter Che was voted most compassionate in her class at the Toddlers for Social Justice Pre-School. Her group just completed a deconstruction and decontextualization of nursery rhymes and a consciousness-raising discussion of recent disclosures that Mother Goose might have been a victim of domestic violence. Che is especially enjoying non-competitive baseball, in which every pitch is considered a hit, thus avoiding offensive terminology such as "you're out!" which marginalizes less athletic children. I hope you saw her poem "Trees Are Never Racist" on the Huffington Post. It will soon be published in the anthology Tolerant Trotskyite Toddler Tracts.

I do have one disappointment which I must share, and for which I ask your empathy. Our son Chad, who has been hanging in Florida since 2004, doesn't seem to know what to do with himself. However, there is hope. He was just offered a spot on the Happy Meal Enforcement Task Force in San Fransisco.

Karl, our eldest, is enjoying his junior year abroad in Gaza, weaving suicide belts and raising funds for J Street.

"Being aware while raising awareness" was this year's theme for our monthly Green Book Club. We so enjoy getting together with like-minded heterosexual, homosexual, transsexual, transitioning, transatlantic, transnational, transparent, transcendental, lesbian, queer and questioning couples. We read biodegradable books while munching free range, vegan, low-sodium, certified organic snacks grown by sensitive, socialist local farmers. Spiritual Sustainability by Deepak Chopra was our favorite by far, a blend of eco-awareness and improved Ayurvedic experience through meditation designed to connect to your inner essence and outer adolesence.

My brother-in-law Kraven continues to thrive as a househusband, atoning for the sins of his gender. He has also bravely volunteered as a test subject for a new testosterone-reducing drug, Dhimmesol. My sister Susan Bea says one of the unfortunate side effects is a lot of headaches. She is focusing her attention on marketing her line of progressive, self-esteem enhancing toys for boys designed to inhibit their aggressive tendencies. If treated roughly these "Think Pink" humanistic dolls sing "We Shall Overcome" in the voice of Joy Behar.

As for me, I'm still deep in the struggle as professor of Race/Gender/Class Lit. Crit. Theory. I've put together a new graduate level course called "Animal Rights in a Time of Climate Change and Postmodern Globalizing Western Hegemony." I am most intrigued by Cass Sunstein's idea that animals should have the right to counsel. I'm supervising a student in an internship which involves organizing for in-state tuition to obedience school for the canine animal companions of undocumented workers.

Every day I jump into my hybrid Hummer, still proudly displaying my "Hope and Change" and "COEXIST" bumper stickers, and drive those three scenic blocks to Wellesley College. Soon I won't have to worry at all about fuel consumption -- for her senior project at the Markey Cap and Trade School, my grad assistant is designing a car that runs on herbal tea. It's wonderful to be teaching at one of the few schools that maintains its "don't ask don't tell" gender policy. Alas, there are a few students whose gender identity issues are causing a few problems on that score, but we carry on nevertheless. My sexual harassment suit against the mailman for admiring my haircut will reach the courts next month. My attorney is an honors graduate of the Kunstler School of Law, so I have total faith in her, oh sorry, I mean him.

Well, that's it for now. Have a multi-cultural, non-judgmental year! See you at the mosque-warming in New York!