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I don't know about
you, but I always look forward to receiving Christmas letters
from family and friends during the holiday season. Often it is
the only news you receive from some of them throughout the year.
I started sending out our family
Christmas letter the year after I got married. Some adult
children are content to share their family news in a letter from
their parents, but I wanted to start our own family tradition
with our own annual Christmas letter. |
| Sitting down to write
a letter can be an intimidating task. It's easy to put off until
the last minute if you're overwhelmed with the idea of trying to
figure out what to say. There are several things to take into
consideration when writing your own family Christmas letter.
Some people get very creative with
their Christmas letters. There are a variety of formats to
choose from. You can buy holiday printer paper at any office
supply store. Just print out your letter on the decorated paper,
and you're all set to go. If you're printing out a lot of
letters and don't want to spend as much on the paper, you can
also just choose colored paper with no design...red or green
paper look festive all on their own with your letter printed on
them. You can also copy your letter on to the paper with a copy
machine instead of printing each one on your printer. If you are
into rubber stamping, you could also hand-decorate your letters
after you print them. |
Or, you can go paper-less! You can
email your letter to family and friends if they have Internet
access. This would allow you to insert pictures into your letter
and not worry about having to print them. Some families have web
sites set up to post family pictures and happenings. This would
also be a great place to post your Christmas letter for all to
see.So what should you write
in your letter? Keeping things short and to the point is
definitely a fine art. I try to keep my letters to a page, if
possible, a page and a half at |
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| the most. It also
depends on how large your family is. The point is not to lose
the reader's interest with too many pages to read. |
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I start my letters
out with a greeting, and then a paragraph or two of major family
happenings, like births, deaths, weddings, etc. This is also a
good place to briefly describe any favorite family vacations for
the year. I then write a short paragraph about each family
member to get everyone up to date about who just got their
driver's license, braces on or off, started their first job,
etc. I just try to hit on the major milestones that people would
be interested in knowing about. |
You'll find that once you sit down to start your letter that the
words will just start flowing and you'll be done with it in no
time. Who knows better what happened in your family this year
than you? It's also a good idea to let someone else read it
before you send it out to make sure you got your facts straight.
Especially about your kids! That could definitely come back to
haunt you later.
Try to send your letters and cards out during the first week of
December. I love getting letters and cards at the beginning of
the season. Hearing from family and friends is a great way to
get into the holiday spirit, and once you have those letters out
the door your time is freed up for other important tasks.
Make sure you keep a copy of your Christmas letter for yourself.
I place a copy of mine in a binder I keep of all the holiday
letters I receive. Someday this will be a wonderful keepsake for
my children and grandchildren. |
Rachel Paxton is a freelance writer and mom
who is the author of What's for Dinner?, an e-cookbook containing more
than 250 quick easy dinner ideas. For more recipes, organizing tips,
home decorating, crafts, holiday hints, and more, visit
Creative Homemaking.
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