Then comes December. Starting the day after Thanksgiving, almost every afternoon I have at least one Christmas card waiting for me at the end of the sidewalk. It’s one of my favorite parts of the season.
I’ve always loved writing – and receiving – letters. When my best friend, Gail Williams, moved to Pennsylvania the summer after second grade, we vowed to be lifelong pen pals. I had my own stationery set, complete with flowered pink paper, matching envelopes and even a pink pen. We diligently wrote back and forth for several years.
I got my journalistic start writing to Gail. One particularly eventful summer, instead of a letter, I designed and wrote a four-page newspaper, complete with headlines and hand-drawn pictures. Unknown to me, my mother made a copy and saved it for years. When I landed my first journalism job, she sent me a framed copy.
Over the years, I lost touch with Gail. But I always had someone to write. As a teenager, I made a new friend during a family vacation. We started writing regularly and still swap Christmas cards every year. I’ve met her once, but I’ve followed her life from college, to first job, to marriage, through the birth of two children and now as those children leave home.
Even though our lives now touch only once a year, I know as much about her – and maybe more – than I do about some of the people I work with. It’s the annual Christmas family newsletter that keeps me so informed. I know a lot of people think they’re cheesy, unrealistic letters, but I just love getting them.
A picture and a typed letter (I forgave people decades ago for typing instead of writing by hand – even I’m not that much of a purist) relating all the comings and goings of the year may be only a cursory glance at my friends’ daily lives, but it’s at least that.
Granted, some letters are better than others. I’ve never been a big fan of the month-by-month version. You know, the “In January, it snowed. In February, we went to visit Uncle Jack. In March, we all got the flu…”
I do have some incredibly creative friends. Several send newsletters with four columns of news items and pictures dotting the pages. I even have one friend who sends the annual letter in rhyme.
I’m happy with all of it.
I’ve lived in four states and have family members from coast to coast. I send out stacks of Christmas cards and newsletters every year. That is, until this year.
I usually have the annual Brown family letter ready to go Thanksgiving weekend. I poll the family and find out what they want to include about their year. I’m usually met with groans and a few eye-rolls. More of that when I enlist everyone to help address, lick, seal and stamp. I keep going, though, undaunted by their attitudes, because: I Like Christmas Cards.
This year I had a hard time getting started on the family letter. It’s been an eventful year for our family and I procrastinated far beyond the first of December. I waited so long, my middle daughter took on the job without being asked.
She spent an entire evening working on what I thought was homework, but turned out to be the Christmas letter. She handed it to me and said, “Here. It’s time to send this out.”
She did a great job – evoking both tears and laughter – in a beautiful letter I couldn’t have improved. I’m happy to send it out with the obligatory family photo.
I’m also thrilled to know that even after a life of groans and eye-rolling, at least one of my children has caught the Christmas Card Bug.
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