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Christmas Letter 2009: I'm a Genius, and My Kids Are Amazing
One of the real joys of the holiday season is reading the annual Christmas letters from family and friends. The best letters manage to be funny, clever, poignant, self-mocking, and most of all brutally honest -- quite a trick to pull off with just a few hundred words.
This I freely admit: My friends inspire me to write better Christmas letters. I won't say I compete with them -- if I did, I'd have to push my kids to be more interesting, and there's no telling what dark alleys that would lead us toward. I just like to think that the people reading my letters get a kick out of them.
Unfortunately, there's another kind of holiday letter. The worst are the chirpy ones that stop just short of offering the exact amount of the husband's annual bonus and photocopies of the kids' perfect SAT scores.
We got one today ... well, I can't go into details, because it would be unfair to the very nice people who sent it to us. We like these people a lot. I'll go as far as to say they're instantly likable. You meet them, and you feel comfortable around them. They're warm, friendly, and gracious.
But during a week like this, when Kimberly and I are fighting with the kids to not leave dirty socks under the Christmas tree, I really don't need to read about how someone else's children all make perfect grades, master technology instantly, and pick up their rooms without being told.
You know?
I can barely get my kids to bathe this time of year, much less organize their bookshelves or defrag our computers. They're great kids in many ways, but I'd rather go off the holiday grid than to stack our family letters with details of their finest attributes. In two sentences I could make each of our kids sound so perfect that other people would start drinking early the day the letter arrived, knowing their children can't possibly measure up to ours.
But I'd never do it, for two good reasons: First, it would be a gross misrepresentation of who our children really are. Second, it would serve no purpose other than to make other people feel bad about their own kids.
So how do you write a good Christmas letter? I've seen useful advice posted here and there. But the real key is this: Your friends and family should look forward to reading your annual letter, and when they finish, they should wish it had gone on a little longer.
Easier said than done, I know. But if you're going to take the time to write anything at all, you should at least put in enough effort to get it right. A Christmas letter doesn't have to be clever or even memorable. It just needs to make its recipients happy they took the time to read it.
Is that too much to ask?
The Rundown
Lou Schuler is an award-winning fitness journalist and author. He began this weblog on menshealth.com in September 2003. If, for any reason, you need to know more about this middle-aged, bald-headed man, click here.
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Comments For This Entry
Posted by Pat at 09:30AM on December 22, 2009
Nice blog, good work!
Posted by Lou Schuler at 04:42AM on December 23, 2009
Thanks Pat!
A quick shout-out to my friends Kevin and Lauren Mitchell, whose 2009 Christmas letter may be the all-time best I've ever received.
Kevin and Lauren did a mock-up of a Facebook page, and described the year they had as a series of FB updates. They had photos, ads over on the right margin, "status" updates ...
The whole thing was just monstrously clever. I don't even want to know how much time they put into it.
Posted by Joe Shea at 11:28AM on December 23, 2009
LouBoy
Love your blogs. Keep up the good work. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and your family!!
Posted by Kevin Mitchell at 11:46AM on December 23, 2009
Thanks for the shout out Lou! I LOVED your blog. I hope people read it ... you didn't touch on the other side of this issue though ... a few years ago I got a Christmas letter from a wonderful, warm, good friend. Her opening? Her tragic miscarriage in graphic detail. Then a lot about how God must mean for them to not have children. Merry Christmas, right back atcha!
Posted by Lou Schuler at 12:29PM on December 23, 2009
Thanks Joe!
Kevin -- wow.
Speaking of Christmas Letters Past:
A few years ago, we spent Christmas day at my in-laws' house. At one point my mother in law was reading a story aloud to all her grandkids. That meant the rest of us couldn't have a conversation. Since there weren't any books or magazines to read, I spent a half-hour reading Christmas letters from their friends.
Virtually every one described trips to see grandkids. "We went to Arizona to see Seth, Sarah, and baby Steven." "We went to Colorado to see Carl, Christine, and baby Catherine."
Letter after letter about traveling to see their grandkids, with an occasional mention of the grandkids coming to see them.
Which gives me a weird new thing to worry about:
If none of our kids choose to reproduce, what the hell are Kimberly and I going to write about in our Christmas letters 20 years from now?
Posted by Qaiser at 11:47AM on December 29, 2009
Still lurking and reading your blog Lou. Merry Christmas and wishes for a great new year to you and your family.
Q
Posted by Lou Schuler at 02:29PM on December 29, 2009
Thanks Qaiser! Same to you and yours!
Posted by James Avory at 12:31AM on January 04, 2010
We need to remember that Christmas is such magical time that I miss it already! There are only one Christmas a year and we need to see the dept behind all of those marketing jewelry!
Posted by Erin at 05:38AM on January 04, 2010
Also Xmas in 2009 was wonderful again. I don't like winter that much but i love Xmas. I'm happy to face spring an summer in a few months. Maybe I should move to a region where Xmas has nice weather and temperatures ;-)
Posted by Rob in Denver at 03:00PM on January 11, 2010
Reading about visiting grandkids or someone else's perfect children is infinitely better than reading about my Mother-in-law's diseases/maladies and their accompanying medical procedures year after year.
Posted by Mandy seitensprung at 09:07AM on January 20, 2010
i love to read your blog, it´s very nice avocation ;-)
Posted by Amy S at 06:06PM on January 20, 2010
This year I was amazed to behold my mother-in-law's letter. It listed the glowing accomplishments of my husband's siblings, followed by the glowing accomplishments of my husband, followed by the report that "his wife, Amy, didn't come along to visit us over Thanksgiving because she had a writing project." My husband claims this is her way of bragging about the important work I do, but I don't know...
Posted by Lou Schuler at 12:47PM on January 22, 2010
Amy, I hope your husband is right! I know my first reaction wouldn't be to think she's saying something nice with a sentence like that.
Posted by Michael at 12:50PM on June 30, 2010
It's the first time I visist your blog...and I really like it! Very good job, keep it up! :)
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