My (former) favorite radio station started playing Christmas music the day after Halloween so clearly…
It’s time to get crackin’ on your Christmas newsletters!
Ahhh…the holidays. A time for Santa and presents and Christmas carols, a time for giving and receiving, caring and sharing.
The sharing is my favorite part of Christmas, especially when the sharing comes in the form of a…
Christmas Newsletter: A small font, text-dense, theme-paper missive that talks about people I don’t know, vacations I can’t afford, and health issues I’d rather not hear about.
People I don’t know – in some cases, dead people I don’t know.
Vacations I can’t afford, like my cousin’s twelve-day trip to Spain, complete with a villa with a “Moorish-inspired interior” and a nearby village with a “garrulous butcher.”
And health issues: “At the hospital they decided he had pulmonary edema, was having a heart attack, and probably lung cancer due to a dark mass on his lungs…They discharged him with a bad upper respiratory infection, and the dark mass on the x-ray was his nipple!”
And…how about an alphabetized newsletter? One couple was so busy they had something special for every letter of the alphabet, right down to “Z”: “Zzzzs are what we need to keep up this active pace!”
Yes, there’s nothing better than a Christmas newsletter unless it’s a – two-page newsletter! Even better than that? Two pages with pictures!
And speaking of pictures, who are all these people? What am I supposed to do with the pictures that come with newsletters? And why is this girl sticking out her tongue?
And how’s this for a personal touch? A newsletter not mailed, but attached to an email blast because she “ran out of time!”
Here are just a few gems my family and friends shared last year:
“Scott and Lise have nothing new to report.” Wow – no alphabetized letter from them, I guess. 
“In July we had a family vacation on the north shore of Oahu!” (And you didn’t!)
“Fell ill with a nasty flu, a couple of days after Rich fell ill, despite our both having gotten flu shots.” Isn’t THAT interesting!
And finally, from another cousin: “I made a wind chime out of a box of random keys of 
all shapes and sizes that Daddy had collected over many years, and the sound that car keys and house keys make tinkling together is utterly delightful!”
Seriously? So, what’s worse? That she did this, or that she told everyone about it?
Now you know why newsletters are my favorite part of the holidays…and why I’m already looking forward to this Christmas.
I Hate Houseguests 