Greetings, friends and family!

Stragsco Enterprises is pleased to announce that our year-end audit showed a slight increase in revenue from 2004 to 2005. However, expenses were up sharply in all areas of the operation (see graph), particularly in costs of transporting the Executive Vice Presidents to and from their various activities. It is also unhelpful, from a fiscal standpoint, that the three EVPs prefer sports that are only slightly less expensive to play than Fabergé Egg Croquet.

The resulting deficit means, for the 19th consecutive year, we will not be issuing a dividend to you, our valued shareholders. And even if we did, it would be paid in scrapbooking supplies.

Additionally, Stragsco is faced with its usual dilemma of whether to cut costs or raise revenues to get through the holiday season. At our most recent board meeting, the CEO and CFO proposed an austere belt-tightening program involving Christmas gifts of fruit, homemade crafts, and stationery supplies from Staples. The EVP's countered with wish lists containing enough state-of-the-art electronics to build their own space shuttle. Debate went nowhere, and deadlock ensued.

So, yet again, in a last-ditch effort to pad our 2005 books, we will try our hand at some holiday-themed e-commerce. Last year's effort, Straguzziville Idol, proved fairly popular with viewers but a disappointment from a revenue standpoint, as our only sponsor was the Acme Earplugs company. (Incidentally, we tallied the votes from the past 12 months, and Scott emerged as the winning Idol [see table]. Amy finished second, John and Mary Beth were next; Nick would like to extend his deepest thanks to the one tone-deaf visitor who voted for him.)

Coming up with a theme for this year's newsletter proved to be a challenge. What would bring in the most advertising dollars, we wondered? Most studies showed that kids and animals top the list of Likability Ratings; viewers also preferred action, adventure and exotic locales. Trouble is, outside of kids, all of these are in short supply in Straguzziville. The most action around here is arguing whose turn it is to take out the trash on Monday nights; the most adventure is ensuring that Amy doesn't try to throw away John or vice versa. And, let us be frank, Mullica Hill is to exotic what Buffalo is to tropical.

Moreover, the steady stream of cease-and-desist letters from Simon Cowell and friends convinced us that any TV show we decided to parody this year needed to be so old that its lawyers are all deceased.

After months of contemplation, and several false starts (there was, truth be told, nothing whatsoever funny about The Straguzziville Hillbillies), we believe we have come up with a winning idea. So grab a beverage and some popcorn, sit back, and let the magic of Stragsco Studios take you back to a simpler era when men were men, women were women, and kids were wishing that video games had been invented so they wouldn't have to spend rainy Saturday afternoons watching reruns of nature shows on UHF * channels. For our 2005 newsletter, we proudly present......