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Friday, December 03, 2010
Please Mr. Postman, look and see....
I have a love/hate relationship with Christmas letters.
For the first decade or so of our marriage I refused to fall in line with the folks that I saw as using Christmas letters as a way to do one of two things or both: bragging about their kids' accomplishments, and avoiding having to write a personal message in each card.
But during the years when change was coming fast and furious for us--AF moves, the pastorate, babies and more babies, etc.--and our Christmas card list grew to over 300, I gave up and began doing a newsletter at Christmas to make sure that all the news got to everyone every year. Some years they were more elaborate than others (never as fancy as many I've received and enjoyed!) but I managed to get them in the mail on Dec. 1 pretty much every year. It became a fun family project and one I looked forward to each November.
Fast-forward to the 21st century. We've changed. Our world has changed. And our circumstances, not to mention our addresses, don't change often enough to warrant a newsletter each year. Moreover, most of the people who care about what's going on in our lives either read our blogs or hear our news and see our photos on Facebook. There's nothing wrong with this...it's just one of the ways the world has changed and therefore it's changed the way we relate and interact. And while I love getting a card by snail mail, I am not one of those who will bemoan the passing of the old routines and the instituting of new ones. The world is what it is, and older doesn't always mean better or more valuable.
So this year, I've made the decision to discontinue Christmas letters. I'm still sending Christmas greetings, but I'm not trying to catch everyone up on all that's happening...and those who want to know will either call, email, or check our "pages". It's rather a wonderful feeling to have shed this task, since it was a very time-consuming and expensive way to communicate, and I'm more than happy to find free methods of sharing way more than we ever could have by one page a year!
Labels: Friendship, Holidays
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