Ready or Not

I mailed our Christmas cards yesterday. Genius Golfer thinks I am one of a dwindling few. I send Christmas Family Newsletters with a card. That is my favorite part of Christmas time.

A lot of people in the past have dissed the Newsletter as a Christmas correspondence because they tend to be glowing, overly sweet, unrealistic representations of a family. You know what I mean, the child won the spelling bee, the tennis championship and the Nobel Prize. The family took a summer long vacation touring the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The father was promoted to chief wizard on the magical court and earned the title of Best Philanthropic Boss. The mom was delighted with a recognition by the Miss Universe organization for her work, at the grassroots level of course, to promote the literacy of Appalachian blondes. Even the puppy was top of his class at obedience school.

I am sure that we received crazy, unreal letters like that once in a while but the ones I remember were from people my parents knew. They would send a note telling about what their family was doing, how they spent their time, what they were proud of, and never--in all the years I lived at home and read my parents' Christmas cards--do I remember thinking "Well, that family is certainly full of itself!" I just loved hearing about them.

So, our family Christmas cards went out with a letter. I asked everyone here for their top 3 favorite or most memorable events from 2008 and wrote about them. Some I could have predicted--others, I was surprised myself.

And while I have this moment of your attention, may I respectfully request just a note of hello or a mention of how you and your family are doing if you send a card to us this year. I love to receive the photo cards, especially as I can then see how your little dearies are growing up and how tall they are, and how much they look like you as a child. But I would love them that much more with a note about all of you. It doesn't have to be a glowing two page report. But just as little memo.

OK. You are right. I really want the Family Christmas Newsletter from everyone I know. I read them. Every one. Not only that, I keep them. I have them in our family scrapbooks, along with the photos you send me and the cards sent to wish us joy in the new year. So, yeah. I want the letter.

I may be a dying breed on this one, but I'll die easier and, certainly, with more pleasure, having just read about your amazing and life changing family vacation to the Galapagos Islands, having won the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes and celebrating your 75 wedding anniversary with your twelve Harvard graduates and current Oxford or Rhodes scholar children and the 45 awesome, hieroglyphic interpreting grandchildren.