The Slice: Growing up the time-lapse way

I have never met the Osborne boys, Tiernan, Teagan and Torin.

But I feel like I know them because their parents, Tadashi and Donelle, have long included me in the list of recipients of their family photo and holiday letter each Christmas season.

Are there families you know that way?

In case you are wondering, the boys – SFCC and Shadle students – have gotten so big I hardly recognize them anymore. Their parents, though, have not changed a bit in 15 years.

Just wondering: How many people still remember when “pass reports” fascinated them because they moved here from a flat part of the country?

Slice answers: “You asked who had the ugliest tree-top angel,” wrote Marilyn Hein, of Nine Mile Falls. “I think it may be me. My angel is homemade – made in 1962 by a new bride (me) for our first Christmas. With more nerve than artistic ability, I built a cone shape out of coat hangers, covered it with white felt, blew a brown egg, painted on a face, made the hair with a piece of a nylon stocking sprayed with gold paint and sprinkled with glitter. Her cardboard wings are covered with aluminum foil, and she has proudly topped our tree every year for 53 Christmases. When we could afford a new, lit, sparkly pretty angel, our kids couldn’t bear to part with Eggnes, the eggheaded angel.”

Perhaps Eggnes ought to have her own animated special.

Colville’s Gordon Hensley wrote, “The ugliest tree topper angel is one I made myself a couple of years ago.”

At the heart of his creation is a Grumpy the Dwarf doll.

Some things people think are new really aren’t: Here’s how that day’s Slice column started on this date in 1994:

A reader called to complain that too many men in Spokane are growing beards.

“It’s getting out of hand,” she said.

We said we’d get right on it.

Today’s Slice question: Which reminds you most of Spokane? Why?

A) Bedford Falls in “It’s a Wonderful Life.” B) The adult-free community in “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” C) Whoville in “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” D) The Island of Misfit Toys in “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” E) The Indiana hometown of Ralphie Parker in “A Christmas Story.” F) Potterville in “It’s a Wonderful Life.” G) Pine Tree, Vermont, in “White Christmas.” H) Other.

Write The Slice at P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. Ro Lisk doesn’t swear in front of her teenage grandsons, “But they swear in front of me.”