December, 1930
Eric’s Holiday Letter: The Grand Finale
Dear friends, family, servants, and tenants (honestly, even the servants, and, to a lesser extent, the tenants, feel like family to me now),
This is Robert Crawley, 7th Earl of Grantham, and proud custodian of Eric’s Holiday Letter, a grand tradition that has been passed down through generations of the Crawley family for over four hundred years. I've given my life to Eric’s Holiday Letter. I was born writing this letter and I had hoped to die writing this letter. I claim no career beyond it. When you look at this letter, you see a million words, a thousand sentences that may collapse under their own weight, but I see my life's work. And yet, I believe this is the grand finale, the end of an era, time to say goodbye.
As you know, Eric’s Holiday Letter is part of an entailed estate that can only be passed down through the male line. If I'd made my own fortune and bought Eric’s Holiday Letter for myself, I would leave it to my daughters without question, but I did not. My fortune is the work of others who laboured to build this letter. Do I have the right to destroy their work? I am a custodian not an owner. I must strive to be worthy of the task I've been set. If I could give this letter away, Eric Abbey would have to be sold to pay for it. Is that what you want? To read a holiday letter, but have no means to pay for it?
My daughters are my great joy, but also a worry. My youngest, Sybil, ran off with my chauffeur and had a daughter who now owns a chateau in France that was left to her by her great-grandmother, who inherited it from a French nobleman who may be my father. My middle child, Edith, who now outranks me as the Marchioness of Hexham, writes her own holiday letter in the magazine she inherited from the father of her daughter. And my eldest, Mary, to whom I had always wanted to leave Eric’s Holiday Letter if I could have, now owns half my estate, while her son will inherit the other half, along with my title and this letter. You see, my grandson is my heir through his late father, who was my cousin and also my son-in-law. This cousin/son-in-law was my heir, but then he also became half owner of the estate after he bailed us out financially using money he inherited from his late fiancé. So, anyway, now I’m pretty sure my daughter is my cousin and my grandson is my uncle.
As I prepare to bid farewell, I thought I would reflect on some of my fond memories of Eric’s Holiday Letter over the years.
I remember the time we entertained the King and Queen of England. We put so much work into that visit. Mrs. Patmore bought the food, Mary set up chairs in the rain, and then, of course, we gave powerful sedatives to the King’s servants and held them against their will so that our staff could serve the dinner. What a jolly good time. But then, the next day, there was an assassination attempt, and the King was shot in the chest! As providence would have it, he was carrying a copy of Eric’s Holiday Letter in his breast pocket, and it saved his life!
And then there was the time Eric’s Holiday Letter was taken over by a film crew, much to my dismay. Mary said we had to do it so we could pay for stamps. But right in the middle of production, The Jazz Singer came out and we thought the project would have to be scrapped. Fortunately, our footman, Molesley, was able to write new dialogue, which we dubbed in and turned Eric’s Holiday Letter into a talkie!
There was the time Edith, carelessly burning copies of Eric’s Holiday Letter in her fireplace, nearly burned down the entire house! The time Eric’s Holiday Letter was taken over during the war and used as a hospital. The time we were all locked in our homes for a year because of the cholera pandemic, and we had nothing to do but read Eric’s Holiday Letter. The time we almost lost Eric’s Holiday Letter in the stock market crash. The time Cornelius Vanderbilt attempted a hostile takeover of Eric’s Holiday Letter. The time Eric’s Holiday Letter survived the sinking of the Titanic, found after three days, floating on a deck chair and clutching a blue-diamond pendant. And the time Eric’s Holiday Letter became the first message transmitted across the transatlantic telegraph cable. First electricity and now the telegraph! Sometimes I feel as though I were living in an H.G. Wells novel! In fact, there has been so much drama over the years, Noël Coward’s new play, Cavalcade, was inspired by Eric’s Holiday Letter.
And who could forget the scandals that rocked Eric’s Holiday Letter? I’m referring, of course, to the time Sybil wore trousers to dinner, the time Mary got her hair bobbed, and the time Matthew and I had to wear tuxedos because my valet had ruined our formal attire. Oh, did you think I was going to mention the Turkish diplomat? I never got the details about that, and I wish people would stop bringing it up. Anyway, we got through these events and kept on going. We thought we could solve any problem by bringing Carson out of retirement.
However, the last straw was when we were forced to sell the London edition of Eric’s Holiday Letter. Mary said it was the only way we could make necessary changes. She says holiday letters like ours must keep moving in order to survive and she’s convinced indoor plumbing is the wave of the future. I’ve decided to stop fighting it, as long as we don’t have to sell the della Francesca. Oh, wait, we already did that. Well, as the Dowager Countess always used to say, “A peer in favour of reform is like a turkey in favour of Christmas,” and I think she had a point. I’m not a reformer and, therefore, it is time for me to go.
But don’t worry. Eric’s Holiday Letter will live on. When I say this is the end and that I’m saying goodbye, I just mean that I’m moving into the dower house, a sweet little forty-room cottage without even a ballroom, said to have been designed by Christopher Wren. I’ll be economizing, of course, with my valet serving double duty as my butler. But I think I’ll be happy here.
Wishing you a happy holiday season and best wishes for 1931,
Robert Crawley, 7th Earl of Grantham
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