SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — The Miles Rausch fam­ily, of Sioux Falls, SD, would like to make the fol­low­ing announce­ment: don’t get us any­thing for Christ­mas™.  They do not request this out of hatred or ill-will of their Inter­net fan-base, friends, or fam­ily.  They would like to stress how much they love their Inter­net fan-base, friends, and fam­ily.  This comes, rather, as a fur­ther indi­ca­tor of the trou­bling finan­cial and eco­nomic times that we live in.  Christ­mas™, the cou­ple adds, isn’t about presents so put the wal­let down already.

They would also like to announce, at this time, that they will be dras­ti­cally scal­ing back their own gift-giving.  The fam­ily esti­mates that more that three hun­dred presents will lose their jobs to keep the fam­ily in the black.  Sources close to the cou­ple say that they are lim­it­ing present bestowals to sib­lings, par­ents, and pos­si­bly grandparents.

Wife, Holli Rausch, added, “These announce­ments were hard for us to make. One thing we haven’t con­sid­ered is just how over­whelm­ingly awk­ward every day of the rest of our lives is going to be now. But we’ll just have to live with that or get new friends.”

To stem the back­lash from the announce­ment, the Miles Rausch fam­ily has begun a Christ­mas™ let­ter which could be ready for online dis­tri­b­u­tion as early as March of next year.