The Slice: P.S.: Love to avoid an audit, too

Stay alert.

At this time of year, it’s possible to get so accustomed to signing “Love,” that you forget who you’re dealing with.

A reader told about a time she unwittingly signed a Christmas card to her accountant that way.

•Old business: OK, where were we. Oh, yeah. The Slice had offered to pass along holiday messages.

All right, here’s one.

Marjorie Lefevre wants to send Christmas greetings to her Aunt Dorothy, who is 99.

“She has been like a second mother to me,” wrote Lefevre. “May she have a blessed Christmas.”

•This is why there’s rehearsal: Dana Waddell’s young son, Brenton, was practicing for a Christmas program. He was singing “Silent Night.”

But his reading of one key lyric came out, “Chris the sailor is born.”

That sounds like a different story.

•A friend writes: “Has anyone else noticed that Sterling Savings’ new ad slogan on billboards all over town — ‘Now more than ever’ — is the same as Richard Nixon’s in 1972? We all know how that turned out.”

•Since you asked: No, I didn’t ride my bike to work Monday.

•Passwords you come to regret: Linda Rise teaches computer classes in a school district that decided a few years ago that students could no longer change their log-in codes. “Now many high school girls are stuck with the name of their 7th grade crush as their password.”

•Slice answer: In the matter of messy auto interiors, Lesley Suzanne-Douglas quoted a ’70s TV character: “I regard my car as one large purse.”

•When the tacked-on “State” isn’t really necessary: A recent story on Christmas trees in The New York Times noted that Oregon and North Carolina are leading sources of holiday trees. Then there was this sentence: “Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Washington State, New York and Virginia are also big producers.”

Now, I ask you. Is there any chance that just saying “Washington” would have made readers assume the District of Columbia is a big grower of Christmas trees?

•Don’t start humming that Bee Gees song: Judy Robertson recently went to Oregon to help celebrate the 90th birthday of a beloved aunt.

One of that aunt’s youngest great-grandchildren had written on a card, “We love you GG. Thank you for staying alive.”

Said Robertson, “It was a sentiment we all shared.”

•Today’s Slice question: Are there any grocery store cashiers you make a point of avoiding, even if it means waiting in a longer line?