I haven’t sent a Christmas card to anyone in the past 15 years. I prefer to send an Annual Family Holiday Newsletter. Typically the letter is two double-sided pages with a color family photo enclosed. I don’t e-mail it as I believe the computer to be cold and impersonal verses the romantic setting of sitting by a warm fire snuggled with my wife sharing out loud a letter detailing a friend, relative, or loved one’s life over the past year, especially if that letter has sadly been the only opportunity over the past year to communicate.

Every year I create a different style scenario: a screen play, humorous quotes paragraph separators, famous individual quote paragraph separators, movie documentary, TV interview with Barbara Walters, a Fairy Tale (Shrek), The Night Before Christmas poem, etc. Last year the dog wrote it, and this year the cat volunteered to outshine the dumb dog’s dullness. Every letter is done humorously depicting each family member’s past year’s events/happenings… good, bad, or indifferent, with no candy coating (if the kid totaled the family car, it’s included with the fact that they're paying for it).

Friends and relatives joke about it’s length, however I am sending out over 125 each year and the mailings continue to grow each year even though some recipients have pasted away or not met my simple requirements. That only requirement is that the individuals receiving the letter respond in some manner once every two years via, a card, a letter, a phone call, or an e-mail, to remain on the mailing list if under the capricious age of 40; there are no requirements for old or ill relatives and friends as I found when visiting them that for many of them it’s difficult to respond and many have stated they truly appreciate and look forward to receiving the letter each holiday. Speaking of which, I’ve also found it exhilarating, yet riddled with anxiety, about the number of really early Christmas cards I’ve received over the past few years that note in them that they are looking forward to reading that year’s humorous letter. Gee, no expectation pressure! And it’s starting to become a challenge to find new and varied formats and themes…any suggestions!

The nicest part is that I have been unknowingly documenting the high-points of my family’s life and now plan one day to create a book of these annual family letters to give to each of my children. I wish I had started writing way back before they were born and when I was first married to call it my life’s book.

So, bah-hum-bug to signature’d cards, cherish the letters, they are historical manuscripts documenting the past that will be re-read and shared many years later with loved ones.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good New Year’s Night!

Patrick Witz

Editor/Publisher/Writer/Photographer

Gold Country Families E-Magazine

A FREE Internet Travel, Dining, Lodging, Entertainment, & Leisure Magazine

editor@goldcountryfamilies.com

http://www.goldcountryfamilies.com