Holiday Newsletters

I love Christmas newsletters. I read them avidly even if I have never heard of the people mentioned in them. They are windows into other people’s lives and are always positive.
Deaths get announced in one sentence. A whole paragraph is given to the fish that got junior’s picture in the newspaper. That’s the way of Christmas newsletters. What’s the point of sharing misery when it’s the season of joy?

Christmas newsletters have to sound reassuring, hopeful, and friendly. The underlying purpose is to maintain the idea of the holidays as a time of family and thankfulness. They say we’ve had a wonderful year—one you might envy. The truth is that if celebrations are in order, it may be because family members have not murdered one another. For that, of course, there’s always next year.

I’ve written my share of newsletters, I must admit. I too have made them upbeat and informative. And I too have glossed over the truth.

This year I wrote in my newsletter that we had been blessed with visitors. True. But not all of them were blessed events. One couple treated me as if I were an incompetent bus driver. The husband took control of the maps and tried to direct me how to drive on roads that I knew. The wife told me I needed psychiatric care because it my job to please them. When they left, I cried tears of joy. That wasn’t in the letter. Instead I emphasized the fun when the Australian visitors came to town and I took them on the same trip. Night and day.

I also emphasized my writing and the two signings. What I didn’t go into were all the turndowns that every writer experiences. I’m an expert now on turndowns. They fall into types: The Impersonal: printed cards with no signature. The Practical: the letter of inquiry returned with scrawl on the top-“not for us.” The Apologetic: Sorry, we can’t use it. The Encouraging: Best wishes on placing this somewhere else. The Regretful: This just doesn’t fit with the rest of our list. The Blunt: There are three hundred books I would read before this one. The I’m-Having-Fun-Turning-You-Down: I find your topic repugnant and so will everyone else. The Marketer: This just won’t sell unless you permit us to rewrite it for you. And so it goes.

People want to hear about happy endings and that life goes on and will do so for ever. When my husband died just before Christmas in 1997, I wrote about rebuilding and trying to move on and not about how each day was a struggle and I was close to despair. I knew people could share courage and success with me. They could not help with the pain.

And that’s why I like Christmas letters. They don’t –or shouldn’t—include surgeries or illnesses(unless the outcome has been miraculous), or financial information (whether winning the lotto or going bankrupt), or divorces (unless very positive and even then carefully worded). They are to be read with an eggnog in one hand, in the complete assurance that no one needs to do anything more than smile and nod. The serious stuff can wait until later.

I sometimes wonder if people would be interested in writing a January letter that tells the truth: how family members rowed and walked out before Christmas dinner, how the family matriarch subtly complained about everyone, how one branch of the family mailed back still-wrapped presents because they were angry with the sender, and how the kids got overtired and cranky.

No? Somehow I didn’t think so.