Last night, I typed the first draft of our annual family Christmas newsletter. Debbie likes it done a little earlier in the year than this, and she has a lot of Christmas cards written, just waiting for the letter to be printed off and included. However, not only am I a last minute man, we have had to hold back on our news until we knew the details of where we were going to move to. That issue has now been settled, although it wouldn’t yet be appropriate for me to be public about the details, so hence my initial bash at the Christmas letter, followed by some helpful suggestions of amendments from Debbie that I now need to incorporate.
Which made me think I might ask – what do you think of giving and receiving annual Christmas newsletters? Adrian Plass has a very funny routine in a video about the ludicrous content of these letters, especially where parents make fanciful boasts about their children’s exploits. But me, I love to receive them from friends and learn what they’ve been up to in the year. My only hesitation is that so many come at once it’s difficult to absorb and remember all the information. I have committed the odd faux pas as a result of not having remembered something a friend said in her newsletter one year.
What are your thoughts?
Big Circumstance 
My thoughts are the same as yours – I love receiving them but when there are several I need to keep a pile to read and re-read! I am just about to write mine so that I can get it in the post for my overseas friends and family. I am a little late this year because I was hoping to know the results of tests so that I could give a good report on my health, but that is now postponed until after Christmas! In my family, especially the older ones without email, these Christmas letters are the only way many people keep up-to-date with family news.
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