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To write or not to write! The annual, end-of-year, sum it all up, this is how we are doing, letter. You throw it in with the Christmas card or it's a Christmas card unto itself. I've seen many versions and have written many types myself. I like them as I get caught up from people I haven't seen in awhile. You know, girlfriends from college, friends who have moved, relatives who live faraway and even friends who live in the same town you are too busy to see! We have friends who are so busy with their children that they send out a Valentine Day letters and one sent out a Christmas in July family letter!
Because I see writing as therapeutic and cathartic - it is how I review my life at the end of the year as the New Year approaches. It may be viewed upon as bragging on how I am doing. But I remember the letter I wrote when my daughter had a benign bone tumor, it was hard a year that we came through and I tried to put a positive spin on it. I think a generalization about Christmas cards is that you can't spread "sad cheer". It's the happiest time of the year right? But we have received cards and letters that have been sad. For example, a former co-worker of my husband now writes the Christmas letter his spouse used to write as she as Alzheimers. There are people who are ill, disabled or elderly who struggle just to get a card in the mail with their signature and little known about how they are doing.
I am not sure what to write this year. It is interesting to look back on past year's letters. How time flies and how our family has changed. Letters and cards are sentimental to me, remembering what we have done this year; the highs, the lows. I recall having been flat out depressed writing that letter and mustered up enough emotion to put a philosophical or comical spin on it. I have strived not to make it a laundry list of accomplishments. Throw the pride to the side.
So best wishes to all you Christmas letter writers and readers out there. Those letters are the adult version of letters to Santa.
Patty
