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Thursday, December 29, 2011

10 Things I've Learned from Holiday Letters

1) Some people are not on FaceBook, because if they were there'd be no need to type and send the mass holiday letter. Everyone would already know their business.

2) My family vacation wasn't that great, no matter how I spin it. It behoves me not to let my kids read any of the Christmas letters.

3) No one who writes a holiday letter admits to tasting the flavor of mediocrity.

4) If my children have any inkling to change the world, they better get to it.

5) My kids are not as amazing as the ones featured in Christmas letters. They get into mischief at school. Sometimes they don't like each other at all. I have to talk in my mean mommy voice to get them to clean their rooms. This is not the stuff of Christmas letters.

6) My husband is not as amazing as the husbands of holiday letters.

7) I am not amazing either. My husband has to put his own clean laundry away. I haven't baked a batch of cookies in the entire month of December and my kids have had to make their own breakfast since they've been out of school. The women of holiday letters balance babies on their hips while simultaneously frosting cakes and saving the world.

8) There are some very gifted writers who use their talents only once a year. They blow their wad stringing together paragraphs portraying the mundane as dileriously fabulous.

9) There are two types of holiday letters: (a) Those that come from families in which nothing bad or disappointing ever happens, and if it does, it doesn't linger long enough for anyone to think it's important enough to write about. (b) Those that come from victims of the universe, but who, in the end, put their faith in God to work everything according to His will. ~ With either type of letter, they'll be sending the nearly same same one next year, only changing ages of children.

10) Christmas letters are so potent in content that some recipients simply cannot stomach them.

7 comments:

Shelly said...

LOL! So true.

Lisa said...

Where's the "like" button on here?? ;)

Dawn M. Hamsher said...

Lucy, Thanks for the laugh!

I would say that (a) writer just plain old tells LIES.

My best friend writes a family gazette every year. Not a letter. A newspaper. While it is incredible (and the amount of time it takes her must be enormous), there have been years that I do not read them. There are so many words, it's overwhelming. It also seems braggish, or something like that.

Very interesting post.

Jamie and Brian said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jamie and Brian said...

Hmm...I'm having second thoughts about sending our holiday letter next year :) Just kidding, this post is pretty true.

William Kendall said...

Oh, good one! And so very true!

Brianna said...

Great post! I concur! I'd rather write all year long than just once at Christmas time and I'd rather read the truth than the sugar-coated version.

Most holiday letters leave me feeling pretty down on myself, so I avoid most of them. I prefer a nice picture with a short wish :)