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Greetings from Massachusetts! The Matheson clan hopes you are all doing well. 2005 was a year of discovery for the Matheson family. Victor, for example, discovered that his true inner nature is more one of procrastinator than of cheapskate as he left writing the Christmas letter until well into January despite an impending increase in the price of stamps. Jolie discovered that even pointing out an impending increase in the price of stamps was not enough to get Victor to start writing the Christmas letter. Lara discovered, well, everything, ranging from how far tortellini can travel through the air if properly thrown to how much fun it is to stick her fingers in her nose anytime she sees somebody with a camera. Lara is a very fun and happy little girl. At only 16 months, she is already bilingual. Of course, neither of these languages is intelligible to any normal human being. Victor and Jolie are both competing with each other to teach Lara her first full phrase. Victor is trying hard to make it “expansionary fiscal policy”. Jolie is trying hard to make it anything but that. As you can see from the enclosed picture, Lara has already taken a liking to horses although Victor, ever the economist, is really working to direct her interests more towards hamsters and goldfish. As the craziness of having a new house, new baby, and new jobs subsided, this year provided our first chance to really enjoy our house and neighborhood. Since this is the first time we have had a backyard, Victor decided to try his hand at gardening this summer. He built a series of terraced rock walls on the hill in the back with his own two hands, which somehow reminds him of a Scottish joke about McGregor, the stonemason. The resulting gardens were planted with an interesting variety of perennials, which are plants that, had they lived, would have bloomed year after year, and annuals, which are supposed to die within one year anyway, a life expectancy well with our capabilities. In the end we did end up with a few flowers and a crop of about 13 cherry tomatoes for our efforts. After accounting for the cost of plants, seeds, water, fertilizer, potting soil, and a reasonable hourly rate for labor, that works out to about $817 per pound for those tomatoes. But they were organic. Both of us continue to enjoy our jobs. One professional highlight of the year was that Victor had an editorial published in the New York Times, proving that you shouldn’t always believe what you read, even in respected newspapers. According to our research, this is the first time a Matheson has appeared in the New York Times without the phrases “alleged incident” or “authorities speculate” being included in the article. The big news for this Christmas is that Jolie is pregnant again and will be delivering by early June. Victor will be looking for quiet places to stay by early July. 9 Audubon Way There are also fun pictures of the cutest Matheson (as well as of Lara and Jolie) and exciting economics papers at least occasionally updated at: http://www.holycross.edu/departments/economics/vmatheso/
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