The Annual Christmas Letter

Poststructural Pub
1

Tonight, NPR had a story about those photocopied “Christmas Letters” that so many Americans send out with their Christmas cards. You know, the ones that mostly consist of bragging on your kids. It inspired me to write this fantasy Christmas letter.


Hello to all our family and friends,

Well 2004 was quite a year for the Branson family. Jim is now in his 13th year as Assistant Head of Automated Vending Sales (Southeastern Division) at Planter’s Peanuts. I am still busy with my volunteer activities and my part-time job at the local orthodontist’s office.

Alison Emily Branson is now five and a half years old and we can hardly believe it. She continues to enjoy her dance classes. At her Christmas recital, we thought her 20-second tap-dancing segment, joined by 109 other adorable little five year old girls, was the very best number in the 4 and a half hour recital. She didn’t even throw up this year.

Our Alison is doing very well academically. We don’t mean to brag, but she just seems, oh I don’t know, smarter than so many of the other children. Her kindergarten teacher recently told us that not only is Alison doing well with her letters and numbers, but she seems to have a knack for a complex statistical process called “multivariate analysis.” We helped her with her little project, “A kernel-type estimator of the intensity function of a cyclic Poisson process.” The poster board she decorated for the project was so cute and we barely helped her at all. Her teacher says it is a little too early to really tell at age 5, but she has a lot of potential in mathematics, evidently. She also can draw a potato.

We were also so very proud of Alison for having foiled a bank robbery here in Bowling Green. I had taken her into a branch bank near our home when two strange, suspicious and nervous-looking men came in, wearing heavy overcoats in the middle of September. I never even noticed and neither did most of the customers. However, I felt Alison tense up and squeeze my hand tighter. “Mommy,” she said, “those are bad men. Cover me.” To my astonishment, Alison, looking completely innocent, of course, casually ambled over to the men, who didn’t even pay attention to her because she is so small. In one fluid motion, she kicked the first man in the back of the knee and then disarmed him before he hit the ground…and I never even saw the gun in his hand. Unfortunately, Alison had to shoot the second man but she was able to keep the other man helpless on the floor until police arrived. A short investigation concluded that Alison’s action was “justifiable homicide.” You’d have thought that the episode would of upset most children, but you should have seen her put away the ice cream we stopped for on the way home! Anyway, I guess four years of karate paid off. I don’t think the dance lessons hurt one bit either!

Well, we hope you’re having a lovely holiday. Come see us in Bowling Green in 2005. Alison is always looking for sparring partners. Merry Christmas to all!

Love,

The Bransons
Jim, Francine, and little Alison

2

I don’t hate Christmas letters. For the most part, I rather like them. But when I write one I leave out the part about the bank heists.

3

Have a trawl around this site for loads more of this wonderful crack.
Makes my Saturdays complete…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1115322,00.html

Slan,
D.

4

Every year on Christmas Eve, Kathy and Judy from WGN Radio in Chicago have their “Merry Medical Christmas” show with excerpts from actual Christmas letters that fall into the category of “too much information” about people’s medical problems. Of course, the names are changed, but everything else is true. As they say, they are not making fun of people who are sick - just making fun of the people who have to share all the details. It is unbelievable some of the things people will write in their letters!

If you want to hear excerpts from last year’s show, you have to go to the following link and scroll down the page to the “Merry Medical Christmas”.

http://wgnradio.com/shows/kathy_judy/audio/index.htm

5

does this mean you don’t want me to send our family newsletter in your Christmas card this year, Dale? I even scaled it down quite a bit…it’s only 5 pages instead of the usual 10 :stuck_out_tongue:

6

I enjoy writing my Christmas letter. Many people enjoy reading it. Some don’t–that’s fine, they can just toss it. I do wish everyone that sends me a card did include some kind of letter.

In my letters, I tend to share bits of news, but over the past many years, more often share one of my original song lyrics or an anecdote. So I am pro-Christmas letters. I encourage everyone to write one, even if there is seemingly nothing to write about.

  • Bill
7

That’s funny Dale.

The first year I had my computer, I wrote one of those. It was nothing special. Same old same old. Then we got one from a friend of our who spoofed the whole letter thing, much like Dale’s. So the next year I copied his idea and since then I have to come up with a new idea every year. If noghing else, it makes for great conversation when we get together.

8

For years my mother sat at our kitchen table a few weeks before Christmas and wrote out Christmas cards - boxes of them. Each card was picked specially for the family to receive it and in every card she wrote a short letter to the family. It took her hours and hours, but in spite of the fact that she was a working mom with five kids, she did it every year. I guess that’s why I’ve never cared for the photocopied letters…to me they lack the thought and personal touch my mom put into her cards.

And besides that, if you display your cards in some creative way, it’s almost always impossible to include the photocopied letters!

Susan

9

Lou and Peter Berryman have a funny song called the Christmas Letter Song. One very detailed part is about a plumbing repair, as I recall. This is the only part of it I could find online, but it’ll give you an idea.

Carol

Joanie found a way to drive to
WalMart without making any
Left hand turns you know how hard those
left hand turns can be
There's a couple blocks she has to
Loop around to do it but it's
Worth it for convenience being
Nearly hassle-free

She may design a booklet made for
Left-hand-turn-aphobics having
Maps on which the left hand turn
Alternatives are shown
Aside from that there's nothing really
Happened we can think of, oh, and
Gary has the job he's had for
Years and so does Joan...
10

That’s funny. I’m afraid I sometimes go out of my way a bit not to turn left…but it’s not the turn that phobes me, it’s a) having to sit there waiting for a break in traffic or b) a pathological inability to be “in someone’s way” if another car appears behind me.

11

I just got one from my uncle that was really cute. It was a computer-made Christmas card, and on the inside was printed “Report:”, and then a numerical, briefly worded list of all the major things he had done this year, along with a little cut-out printed picture of himself that he referred to as Exhibit 1. I thought it was real nice!

On the other hand, I used to get the annual Christmas letter from a friend that was really nauseating. You’d think his were the only kids that had ever potty trained!! (etc…)

Robin

12

Some are good. Some not so good. I guess it sort of depends on how creative they are.

Will O’Ban

13

Let me repeat my opinion that writing Christmas letters is one of the best things a person can do related to the holiday. I believe it brings a person closer to friends and family, and if done well can provide a good measure of introspection. If a receiver doesn’t like it, again, he/she can always toss it.

Here’s what I like:
1a) Interesting, thoughtful, insightful handwritten letter.
1b) Same, but xeroxed

  1. Humorous, or an attempt at humor–one friend does a top ten list, another used to refer to a “five-year plan.”

  2. “What I did last summer” type of letter, but covering the whole year. This is the stereotype. My opinion is that a writer is better off focusing on one interesting story than trying to cover 365 days in one page.
    3b) the long version of the above.

  3. Cute baby pictures with no letter. Those from ex-girlfriends/boyfriends, or people the same age (for those with no kids but wanting one), can be especially irritating.
    4b) Combine the stereotypical newsletter with cute baby pictures.

  4. A card with a signature.
    5b) a card but my name is spelled wrong, or it arrives very late–only after they have received my card.

  5. zilch, nada, nothing

Blessings,

  • Bill
14

I’m with you Bill. I’ve never gotten one that I wished I hadn’t gotten. I like knowing how people are. Short sentences jotted on the sig line disappoint me a little. I think Susan’s mom’s handwritten cards sound phenomenal, but since most folks aren’t going to take the time I’d rather know something than nothing. Even if it’s gag inducing, at least I’m entertained.

15

Last year one friend made her Christmas card interactive by including a Mad Lib she and her husband had made (which we would complete by filling in the blanks). And my sister sent Christmas cards drawn by her kids (which I thought were precious, as their doting aunt).

On the other hand, I was excited to card from an overseas friend I hadn’t heard from in a year - not since the last Christmas card - but all it said was “Merry Christmas Grace, love Susan.” :sniffle:

16

I moved in to my present abode about thirteen years ago.For the next five or six years a lot of Christmas cards came here addressed to Mr. and Mrs.—.
The next year nearly all of the cards were addressed to Mrs.— so I assumed that her husband had passed on (I learnt years later that they were very elderly).
I often wondered how their friends in London,where most of the cards were postmarked,knew that one of the couple had died but never knew they had moved away some years before.

Slan,
D.