Day 24 of 4: Christmas Letters (11/30/12)

Day 24 of four more years (originally posted on Facebook on November 30, 2012)

Christmas letters. Do you write them to include with your Christmas cards? Do you enjoy summarizing your year and jotting down the events of 2012? It can be a challenge: the condensing of a year into several short paragraphs. Perhaps you are anti-Christmas letters… you hate them...feel intimidated reading the accomplishments of everyone else. Maybe you feel your life wasn't as great this year. Or do you think they are funny, annoying, boring or a chore for you to do? Maybe you just sign your name or have a computer do that for you. Christmas letters are not controversial for me at all! I love them all. I am sad when the card only says your name, no matter how beautiful the design. Tell me more, please! If I only hear from you once a year, I have missed you! Give me a "one-liner" if you can. I really am easy to please. If not, you know I love you anyway. Even those of you who don't send cards back…doesn't matter to me. I love sending them, anyway, and I don't stop sending them if you don't reciprocate. You get on my list, you stay on my list! Almost forever!

If you get a Christmas card from me, you know I stopped doing a Christmas letter after Scott died. One of the reasons: my "red pen critique person" was gone. Scott had a definite opinion here. Even though I wrote the letter, he exercised his red pen with gusto! As soon as I scribbled my lines, he took his red pen and tore into it. Never mind that I was the English teacher, grammar was not what he was after. His comments went like this, "Bragging here, line through this one!" "Too religious." "Way too personal (the trip to the doctor)." And my favorite: "The kids won't like you talking about their boyfriends/girl friend, etc." Well, it just sort of hurt my feelings. And it took several tries to get his approval. By that time my letter sounded like it was written by a robot! But I would grudgingly agree and slip a scripture in at the last minute! Or crack a joke about the kids' antics or something Scott did! All went well until the letters went out and someone commented on the additions! Not funny!

These days I have given the letter up. After all, there is no telling the intimate, personal things I would write if I had no censor! The last few years, I have just done a bullet list of observations from the previous year. A little biographical data slips in, but it is usually a commentary on things I remember, wrote down on a scrap of paper and slipped into my Bible. Inspiration only to me, but I sort of share it. So this year have I pulled out the raggedy pieces of paper, put them into a paragraph, or something? No, not even started. But I am thinking about starting!

Totally off the subject here: Can you imagine a person who mails a Christmas card before Thanksgiving? I know one, and you know who you are! So, stop it already! I love you, but just give us one week to be thankful!

"Rejoice with those who rejoice…" Romans 12:15

Pray:

Father, help us to enjoy this time of reconnecting with distant loved ones! Give us hearts to rejoice in each others' joys and bear each others' burdens. You are the ultimate giver of the best gift this year: your Son, Jesus. May we let all we do reflect the true reason we celebrate.

Amen