When the wrong Christmas cards arrived, she turned them into a memorable letter

No stranger to the philosophy “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade,” Stacy DeBoer quickly recovered from her disappointment at getting the wrong order from a greeting-card company.

In fact, as someone quipped in a Facebook post, DeBoer’s response could be adapted to a new maxim: “When life gives you Lommens, make Lommenade.”

That’s why, rather than dump the 60 missent cards depicting a smiling family of four in the trash, DeBoer incorporated them into her annual Christmas mailing. She looked at the photographs of Jeff and Val Lommen, their teenagers Madeline and Lucas and their dog Remy and imagined the life they must lead. Then, she wrote about them.

DeBoer, who retired from teaching last May, always incorporates humor into her Christmas letter. She thought others might enjoy the humor of her situation: less than two weeks before Christmas and no time to wait for the proper cards.

“It’s just meant to be funny. I just wanted to make people laugh about the whole card,” DeBoer said. “Plus, they look like a lovely family.”

So she decided Madeline and Lucas are involved in sports but also focus on their studies. Jeff and Val run a business that is doing so well that they could take the family on a trip to Italy. Jeff has a hobby that takes up much of his time to Val’s mock regret. And Remy the dog — well, he loves nothing more than to curl up with his boy and spend the nights dreaming together.

Christmas letters often are the subject of mockery, and it would have been easy to turn to snark for her humor. That’s not what DeBoer wanted, however. She simply wanted to share the humor in her situation.

DeBoer can relate to the Lommens. She and her husband, Darin, raised three children who all live in the area. Before retirement, she taught in the Brandon Valley School District, 20 years in special education and then 16 years as a second-grade teacher. Pets always have been part of the DeBoers’ life.

For this year’s Christmas card, DeBoer selected a family photograph that had been taken at a nephew’s wedding in October. It included all three children, her daughter-in-law and her granddaughter. A light-hearted letter always accompanies the photo card, but the pressure to come up with something funny every year can cause a little stress.

The Lommens unwittingly took care of that for her.

When she first opened the package from Snapfish, DeBoer blinked. But she didn’t watch out, pout or cry. She knows Santa’s rules.

“I opened it up and thought, who are these people? I’m like, wait a minute, those are not my kids,” she said.

Dismay soon turned to inspiration.

“At first, I was, oh, man, I won’t be able to get my letters out in time, what happened, how do I fix this” DeBoer said. “That shortly went to, oh I’m sending these out.”

Response to her “Lommen-ade” letter has been swift. DeBoer has been told that this is her best letter yet. It has topped the year she wrote a lengthy missive explaining that she was too busy to write a letter.

She also has learned a bit about the Lommen family after her daughter looked them up on Facebook. They live in the Twin Cities, and Valerie Carkuff-Lommen works for Hennepin County. According to LinkedIn, Jeff Lommen is an auditor. DeBoer hasn’t reached out to the Lommens but hopes they would take her version of their life in the loving way she presented it.

DeBoer did contact the company that had sent her envelopes with the correct return address but wrong Christmas cards. Her original order has arrived, and she plans to send them out — eventually.

“Why waste 60 cards with our picture on them,” DeBoer said practically. “Might as well give them away. Postage is not cheap, but it’s worth it. But this one’s not getting a letter. This one’s just a card.”