Dear friends: Here's how to write a great holiday letter

Sage advice on the season's toughest writing assignment

December 05, 2011|Barbara Brotman
  • A young couple, circa 1949, read a Christmas letter in this photo that ran in the now-defunct Woman's Illustrated magazine.
A young couple, circa 1949, read a Christmas letter in this photo that ran in the now-defunct Woman's Illustrated magazine. (Getty photo)

Having your birthday sandwiched between two great men's birthdays (my dad and The Lord) has always been a bit of a sore spot for me. On the way to work today, I couldn't help but wonder if when Jesus was a kid, there was confusion around whether or not His gifts were birthday presents or Christmas gifts.

That was how my neighbor Steve Bankes' family holiday letter began last year. I've read a lot of holiday letters, often without a lot of enthusiasm. But Steve had me at "my dad and The Lord."

Writing a holiday letter is a perilous exercise. Take the wrong tone, and you sound like a braggart or a travel agent. The best intentions to send a personal holiday message can pave the road to rolling eyes and recycling bins.

I don't write holiday letters myself. But I was so taken with Steve's that I decided to share it, and to ask some experts for tips on how to write one well.

Bill Savage, senior lecturer in English at Northwestern University, suggested starting with the right anecdotes.

"What stories do people tell at family reunions?" he emailed. "Not the Everything Is Going Great stories that populate holiday letters. Perhaps it's true that Tragedy plus Time equals Comedy, but I'd say the same goes for family stories. Why not speed up the time factor by telling the hilariously embarrassing stories NOW instead of waiting for later?

"But of course I come from a family that is pretty much beyond embarrassment so perhaps I'm not the best to advise regarding that," he remarked. His brother is sex columnist Dan Savage.

Consider Tolstoy, he said.

"Writers of holiday letters should keep in mind what's come to be called the Anna Karenina Principle. Tolstoy opens that novel, 'Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.' Substitute 'interesting' for 'unhappy,' and you have a guiding principle for writing good holiday letters or birthday cards or anything else that can fall into boring routine.

"Ask yourself: Why would anyone want to read what I am about to write?"

Novelist Samuel Park, who teaches English literature at Columbia College, advised putting children's accomplishments in the context of gratitude so you don't sound like you're bragging.

"You can say, 'Thank you so much to his coach, his teacher, his high school,' " he said.

Be realistic about people's level of interest, he said: "Assume that people skim. … Put your information in a very skim-friendly form, like bullets.

"Don't waste time with flowery prose," he counseled. "Nobody's reading for entertainment; they just want the information.

And make it very short. Assume that no one's going to spend more than two minutes on the letter. OK, maybe one minute."

"The best advice I can give is to keep your eye on the goal," said Brigid Pasulka, a novelist who runs the writing center at Whitney Young Magnet High School. "You're not writing your kid's college application, you're not writing a Wikipedia entry, you're not trying to create a shrine to yourself.

"You're hopefully connecting with far-flung family and friends and you're hopefully having a fun activity for your family to do, composing the letter."

My friend Steve turned a fun activity into last year's letter itself. Instead of telling us about his family, he brought us along with them as they photographed their holiday card.

There was fairly strong consensus around picking a 5-letter word and having each member of the family visually "act out" the letter in some way. Julia is holding a pea ("P"), Will is fingering "E" major on his guitar, I am signing "A," Abby is playing "C" on the flute but you can't tell. Carrie is the only obvious letter ("E"). If you figured out the word (PEACE) before reading this letter, give yourself a gold star.

Abby voted for the word "HAPPY" and had a huge hissy fit when her idea was rejected. She completely missed the irony of crying and wailing and demanding "I want HAPPY."

Julia… (is) actually holding a soybean because we were out of peas. She kept holding it the long ways and I was cranky and said, "Jeez, Julia, hold it so it looks like a pea, it's not that complicated." She of course didn't miss the irony of my little hissy fit.

When I asked Steve for his advice on holiday letters, he emailed, "The only rule for our letter is that you can't mention a trip or vacation or a fancy purchase."

But address the holiday seriously? Sure.

Just got off the phone with Carrie. She and the kids and the dog are picking me up from work as a birthday treat. If you travel on the CTA regularly, you know what a gift this is.

For kids, gifts are wrapped and Christmas is still a fairly stuff-centric day. But as they get a little older I think Christmas actually gets a little better. They are all old enough now to assign their own meaning to Christmas. And they might even peek over the chaos of toys and wrapping paper and notice that their mom and dad are looking back at them with wonder and amazement that these three little people are gifts we receive every day.

In 30 minutes, I will swing the car door open and inside will be everything I ever wanted."

Now, that's a holiday letter.

Off to your laptops, letter-sending friends. There are only 19 writing days till Christmas.