How to write a Christmas letter

I consider myself a Christmas letter connoisseur. For many years, my annual Christmas letter was our primary means of communicating with far-flung friends and family. Letter might be an understatement.  At times I have generated an eight-page, full-colored Christmas Booklet™ complete with an absurd number of photos and illustrations. Sure it was obscenely over the top, the equivalent of that one guy in the neighborhood whose Christmas light display is visible from space. I was attempting  to condense into a sentence or two a number of representative vignettes intended to reveal some essential truth about our family and its component parts. 

Some of these items were major (Carissa finishing her Ph.D., the birth of our daughters, the loss of a parent, new jobs) while some were trivial (that time I inadvertently put one of the kids in the path of a grizzly bear, Carissa and me sneaking into Mexico,  converting the number of miles I run in a year to the number of beer calories I burn and likely consume that year). I used x-ray photos to illustrate Carissa's stress fracture one year and her blown ACL another. Quite a few photos of our oldest daughter posing with chess and soccer trophies. Plenty of stories and photos about the naughty but clever antics of our now four-year-old.

I've backed off the booklet concept the last few years. Social media has become so ubiquitous that basically my Aunt Alice in North Dakota is the last person who's not on the Internet (she does have a cell phone and, bless her, calls me every year on my birthday). Between facebook, twitter, and this blog, I blow my good material well before the end of the year. So I have scaled down. But I continue to eagerly anticipate the arrival of Christmas letters since most of my friends and family are more reticent than me about using social media as a public form of self therapy. And I love to see pictures of their kids, to learn of the milestones in their lives.  Also to scope out the competition and steal ideas  and concepts from other writers. But I'm going to be brutally honest: Not everybody brings their "A" game to their Christmas letter. This being the giving season, I humbly share observations and tips formed over years of studying the art and the craft of the Christmas letter: 

Your letter and the "War on Christmas"

Since I believe that we as a nation spend too much time being outraged at manufactured or exaggerated social issues, I leave the appropriate holiday salutation to your discretion. There is no wrong answer. Wish me Merry Solstice or Happy Kwanzaa, I’m happy to hear from you. I sometimes but not always use “Happy Holidays.”  First, it covers everybody who is celebrating this time of year - Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Pagans, secular humanists, agnostics, atheists, cats, and dogs. And second, it’s fun to troll the Culture Warriors. But please note: If you receive a Christmas letter that wishes you a "Merry Christmas" and are offended, you should probably work on getting over yourself.

Personal letter or form letter?

If you want your letter to be genuine and sincere, you need to write in long hand on fancy stationary and say something specific and meaningful to the recipient. But let's be honest: You don’t have time for that (also, you don't have any fancy stationary). So your challenge is to write a form letter that appears to be genuine and sincere while you advise the recipient of the awesomeness of your family over the past year.

The art of the humble-brag

When writing about how your year was so spectacular, however, care must be taken to not appear excessively boastful. Because instead of being happy for you we will hate you and pray that karma kicks your condescending, pompous ass. That's where the technique of "humble brag" comes in. Humble brag is when the writer embeds a self-promoting statement within a statement intended to sound self-deprecating. It's a delicate balance but can take your Christmas letter to a whole new level - entertaining and informative without being off-putting. Examples:

•  This year we finally remodeled the kitchen. How embarrassing that our recycled-glass counter tops cost more than our Prius - still not as painful as last year's installation of wall-to-wall sustainable wood flooring. That cost more than our first home!

• We have been so busy! How did I find time to train for and complete TWO marathons this year? I don't know, but I am wearing the same dress size I wore in high school! The kids tease me that I now look like one of their siblings rather than their mom. LOL.

• Our family was relieved this year when Kieran received his first "B" (in P.E. of all things!! Yes – the kid recruited to play for the U-8 Super Top Uber Elite FC travel soccer team got a "B" in P.E.!!) and took it in stride. He is so competitive about his grades that we worried his anxiety issues would surface.

So you can get away with a lot if you're willing to engage in a little disingenuous self-deprecation. I would give you a few more examples but I'm still a little unsettled. Just got word that I made the final cut for the Idaho Statesman's Hottest Hunks in Boise title. For someone who's never worried about his physical appearance and who tends to shun the spotlight, I am surprised that I give a second thought to something so superficial (I only agreed to participate because it raises money for charity).

On whether to write your letter in the voice of a child or pet

Danger. Don't go there.

Keep it conservative when it comes to fonts and type styles

If you want your letter to be legible, you should stick with good old Times New-Roman in 12-point font in basic black. You will never regret it. If you want to be edgy, may Calibri in 11-point in a dark, dark blue. If you're a veteran Christmas letter composer, sparingly, add some green or red highlights. If you do not care if your letter is legible, go crazy. Speaking of crazy, resist the urge to use all capital letters. Not only is the copy hard to read, but do you know who else writes in all caps?  CRAZY PEOPLE WHO WRITE MANIFESTOS AND LIVE IN THEIR CARS DOWN BY THE RIVER. 

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The above suggestions are not comprehensive but should give you a start. So now it's time for me to start preparing my family Christmas letter, 2012 edition.  A lap top,page design software, a bunch of pictures, an outline of notable family events, a generous dose of Jameson on the rocks, and I'm ready to go. Which reminds me of a final word of advice: It's OK to write drunk, so long as you remember to edit sober.

Cheers!