Some Christmas traditions seem to be universally despised. The two that top the list most often are Fruitcake and the Christmas Letter. I grew up in a house where Christmas morning always included Fruitcake's German cousin Stollen. My mother would make the annual trip to Zinn's Bakery to pick up the Stollen and I would hope and hope and hope that they would be out and she would have to pick up the Cherry Cheese Strudel instead...but no...every year the Stollen made it on the table. Every few years I would try a slice just to see if maybe I was remembering incorrectly and it was actually a yummy treat...and I can safely say that I am never going to be a fan of Stollen or Fruitcake.
Now the Christmas letter used to be met with the same level of disdain and even outright mocking. When Brent and I were first married I composed a Christmas letter putting our family 15 years in the future filled with all of the wonderful amazing things we were doing. Solving the world's problems, curing cancer, winning Nobel Prizes and I swore that would be the last Christmas letter I ever wrote. But then a funny thing happened...
Christmas would come and we would get cards from family and friends and I started to notice that my favorites were the ones that included the...you guessed it...Christmas Letter. Brent joined the Navy shortly after we got married so we spent the first few years of our life together moving around with the Navy. Then he went to work for Intel and we spent the next batch of years moving around with Intel. All of that moving means we have friends scattered across the country. And in the days before things like blogs and Facebook and MySpace and Email and free long distance it might be only once a year that you hear from people. That Christmas letter gave me a window into what was going on. How everyone was. Just for a minute I was back in their life sharing their world.
So I figured if I liked getting the annual missive, then others must as well. So the Christmas letter was revised. I started sending one out the year Christopher was born and I have every year since. It's pretty standard fare. I have friends who write letters that are really works of art. Even though we live in the same town, we chat on Facebook, I read her blog, and see her at least once a month I love getting my friend Raquel's annual letter. Each year it's a different theme and it's always funny and still covers the year they had. Brent's father used to write a letter (never quite made it out at Christmas, usually closer to New Year's) that was snarky and funny and reflective of his sense of humor. Megan's mother took the Christmas letter completely digital this year. She did a webpage and posted photos of events through the year with little blurbs about what was going on. It was beautiful and so sweet to see.
Now some years the letter is harder than others. When Brent's father died I wrote and rewrote the news. I put it at the beginning then moved it and put it at the end. I really struggled with how do you put that in a letter with the same news that we went to the beach that summer? But in the end I decided that it was our life. And there would be people who hadn't heard the news and so it went in the letter. The same thing with my mother's cancer this year. It's a big part of our lives.
I always forget something and wish I would have added it once the letter goes out. This year it was that Amanda Frost showed up unannounced on our doorstep last spring. Amanda is the daughter of Hoke and Margaret and we have known her since she was 11, she is now a young mother with a daughter of her own. Hoke died unexpectedly five years ago right before Thanksgiving. That was another really difficult Christmas letter to write; grieving and reflecting on the year at the same time makes for a maudlin letter. But seeing Amanda and "hearing" her dad talk through some of her attitudes was a real treat.
So the letter went out this week and it is posted on my Facebook page for those that have gone digital, and I will post it here in the blog as well. The Christmas Letter is now one of my traditions and I have grown to really appreciate the other families who send one as well. But as far as fruitcake is concerned? Nope...still just no.
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