The Dreaded Christmas Letter

My old boyfriend's (Brother Bill) Christmas card arrived a bit late--December 2, instead of the 1st.  His is always the very first Christmas card we get.  He is apparently having health problems that he didn't go into this year and I was sorry to hear that.

I take Bill's annual card as a challenge.  It is my personal challenge to get our Christmas letter written and e-mailed to him before I get his card.  This year I completely forgot about it and it took his card to remind me.

But I got my letter written (it is linked in the left column if you want to read it).  The venom over Christmas letters seems to have lessened a bit but each year you know there are going to be some who "hate...hate...hate" them. 

I can never figure out why someone would be upset at getting something that someone has spent time creating to share with friends and would prefer to get a card with a pre-printed name and no message whatsoever.  But to each his own.

I have been sending out Christmas letters ever since we got married (52 of them!)  In the beginning the preparation was much more elaborate because I took my paste up to a real printer and had them printed to mail out.  They always included a family picture or more

This was our family picture in 1969, Paul's first Christmas.

 

The printed cards started to get spendy, when you considered not only the price of the printer but also the rising cost of postage.  It was costing me nearly $200 just to send greetings that most people would glance at and then throw away.  I started xeroxing the letter to save money but the photos always looked liked...well, xeroxed photos.

Email was a godsend because I could reach a good number of our friends and email greetings without having to whittle the list down to an affordable postage list.  And then when Funny the World came along and I realized that I could design a web page and just send out the link to the site, I had found Nirvana.  I could do what I loved to do, I could design a prettier card and still reach all our friends, and now even acquaintances that I would like to greet during the holiday season

I probably go overboard on who is on our list, but I really love sharing the card. 

I heard a story this morning of someone who had regifted something that turned into kind of a nightmare.  I don't have any regifting stories of my own, but I do remember the Christmas that Walt's mother gave my mother the gift she had given her the previous year. I loved that we always had a blended family, from the first year of our marriage.  Walt's mother came to my parents' house for Christmas and forever more, until distance or health made that an impossibility, wherever we were having Christmas the two families always spent it together.  Now, of course, that there are other in-law families to consider it's different.  It helped that Walt's brother and sister didn't marry until late!

But the regifting story got me to thinking about memorable Christmas gifts I have received.  Not memorable in the "Oh Wow you got me a ....." story, but the strange gifting incidents.  Like the Christmas that I begged and begged my mother to let me open just one gift.  I was in grammar school and it was a gift a classmate had given me.  I don't know why this is such an indelible memory, but I even remember where I was sitting when I opened the gift and how disappointed I was because it was a piggy bank. I don't even know why I was disappointed but I guess I expected something more exciting.

Then there was the year I got the camera.  Something I dearly wanted.  In those days, department stores delivered your purchases for you and when this box came, my mother said it had my gift(s) in it.  She said there were something like five gifts in it and decided to just wrap the box it had been sent in.  I was thrilled to get a camera, but the multi gifts she was talking about were the various parts of the camera--the flash attachment, the bulbs, the batteries and don't remember what else.  That little Brownie box camera changed me into a photographer, but I always felt cheated that I didn't have four other gifts in the box.

Then there was the year that I got a big box from the family for whom I babysat.  The father was a big joker and from the time when I went with them on their vacation to Lake Tahoe, he gave me a hard time about not eating my vegetables.  I was so excited to open their gift, and then so terribly, terribly hurt that it was just full of limp vegetables.  I wasn't going to let them know that I wasn't a good sport, though, and called to thank them fort he vegetables.  "Did it take you a long time to find the present?" the father asked.  Turned out he had hidden a book of movie tickets in the tissue paper under the vegetables.  I might never have found them if I hadn't decided to be a good sport and thank him for the vegetables.

There was the year of the Mary Hartline doll, which I've spoken of before.  I wasn't into baby dolls any more and so desperately wanted one of those big fancy dolls that look like a young woman from Tara or somewhere.  I watched a show called Big Circus at that time and the hostess was Mary Hartline and I guess my mother thought that any non-baby doll would make me happy.  I knew when I saw her under the tree that I would never get the kind of doll I really wanted .. and I never did.

The final gift memory I have is from when I was in high school.  My mother was so excited about the gift she had given me and she teased me about it for weeks.  Then I was somewhere babysitting and watching television and the girl on the TV was wearing a faux fur bolo jacket kind of like this one:

I knew instantly that this was the gift I was getting...and it was (only in grey).  I never liked it but I never let my mother know and acted excited, but I think I only wore it twice.

I guess this makes me sound like an ungrateful kid.  I received a lot of wonderful gifts throughout my childhood and adulthood, but these stand out as some of the most "memorable" gifts I have ever opened.

Writing Our Annual Letter

One of my great joys each year is writing our Christmas letter.  Sometimes I start it in October, sometimes November.  My goal each year is to get it finished and distributed before my ex-boyfriend, now Jesuit brother, Bill Farrington, sends out his Christmas card.

I'm one of those awful people who talk about our kids, our grandkids, our dogs, our trips and all the stuff that probably most people don't care about.  I even wrote Christmas letters (though subdued) the years that David died (1996) and Paul died (1999).  I still include our two dead sons when I sign my annual letter and mark them "in absentia," because I still consider them part of our family.

And yes, every year I feel defensive when the inevitable diatribes against people like me start appearing on the internet.

I thought about starting our letter when I was in Iowa, but all of the photos I wanted to use were on my external hard drive at home, so I resigned myself to getting the letter out late and cringed when Bill's card arrived, right on time, on December 1.

Since I've been home, I've been trying to write the letter and the "joy" just is not there.  The past two months have been so depressing, and my mother's worsening condition so disheartening that it's hard to bring the Spirit of Christmas into a joyous Christmas greeting...and who wants to get a Christmas letter that says "my life sucks, Merry Christmas."

Actually my life doesn't suck at all.  We are all (even my mother) in good health and good things happened this year.  The grandkids are a constant joy and we will be seeing them in a couple of weeks when we go to see Brianna's play (The Music Man, the very first big musical that Paul ever did ... so there will inevitably be some tears), but there is no holly in my heart this year and I am struggling to find the words to make the letter interesting.  Or finding words at all.

But it will get done.  Eventually.  Just not with the same enthusiasm that it usually has.

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Walt went off to the opera with Char this afternoon (La Boheme...she died good) and then out for a beer with Ernest Kevin Baur, in town for Fox News to broadcast the 49er-Raiders game (sorry 'bout that, Tom), which gave me an empty house all day, which was nice.

I had a slothful day catching up on TV I missed while in Ohio, like all of White Collar and all of The Newsroom.  Both are in their last seasons and I will miss both very much, especially White Collar, of which I have been a fan since before the rest of the world discovered the show.

And at the end of the day, I had a lovely chat with Jeri, which always makes things good.

Life Upon the Wicked Stage

Jeri wrote the other day asking if I could send her a copy of the photo printed on the right.   It's David as Tom of Warwick in a production of Camelot here in Davis in 1982.  I thought I had misplaced the album of our "show biz" years,but it turned out that I have only replaced one of the four books.
 

Needless to say, Walt and I have had a great time going through the book and looking at the memories of all those shows with which our family was involved, and who did what.

Camelot was one of the early productions that sparked maybe a decade or more of involvement by one or all of the kids, in both performing and technical areas of dozens of shows.

Also performing in this show was our then-foreign student, Pujol Monteiro from Brasil, who played Sir Sagramore and Henriet Bolman, another foreign student, Pujol's best friend, who lived with a different family, playing one of the ladies of the court.

So many other shows, other memories found in this book.  Several shows where 15 year old Jeri was the lighting designer, assisted by her now-husband Phil.   There was the famous production of The Music Man, where Paul first appeared as lisping little Winthrop Paroo (a role he recreated in Oakland, where he won an award as Child Star of the Year).  Jeri was Amarylis, the girl who takes piano lessons from Winthrop's sister, but she was also on the light crew with both Phil and Paul.  The big surprise in that show was finding that the rehearsal pianist and the guy who played piano for the show was Derrick Bang! (the exclamation point was part of the name), who went on to become Entertainment Editor for the Davis Enterprise and my boss for several years.  Also, on the costume crew was one Freddie Oakley, who is now the Yolo County Clerk/Recorder.

I always loved it when Jeri and Paul had scenes together, as the above from Music Man, but the one that got me every night was from Oliver! where Paul was Oliver and Jeri was Bet and they danced a little dance at one point.   I got all verklempt every time.

Tom and David danced together, too, in Alice in Wonderland, when they were cast as Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee.

Though I think they preferred being together in Frankenstein than dancing in Alice in Wonderland.

It is sad that Ned was in Brasil this year, living with our Brasilian son, Eduardo and his family, and so he missed out on all of these productions, though after he returned he got right into the thick of things too. But all that history is in a different scrapbook!

Whoda thunk back in 1982 that Jeri and Ned would still be in show biz in 2013 and that David and Paul would be gone.  Tom hasn't appeared on stage in years, but performed up through high school.  As for our foreign student, Pujol, who limped through Camelot and had a hard time not tripping over his own feet, he went on to study ballet and became quite a good dancer and choreographer.

Nice memories.

 

Paul, as Oliver, singing "Where Is Love?"

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Pandiona wrote another entry about Christmas letters, reiterating that if you can't be bothered to contact someone throughout the year, an annual update is just narcissistic.  She included a lot of supporting articles and blogs from people who agree with her and who also detest annual letters. I attempted to leave a comment, but I guess I'm shut out.  My comment was this, in case she checks this blog out again (which I doubt she will do; she was very clear that she was finished with me):

OK. Very last comment on this. Nothing snarky. Today I received a holiday letter from a woman with whom I worked in the 1970s, but have not seen since I attended her 50th wedding anniversary, a few months before her husband's death. We don't communicate with each other throughout the year because we live on opposite sides of the country, but we still care about each other. Our daughters, now grown women, went to school together and I am interested in reading about the daughter's winery and now-grown children, and my friend's travels following her husband's death. She just said how pleased she was to receive my letter so we could compare our travels this year and catch up on grandchildren. We communicate with each other yearly, as do many of my friends. Maybe it's because I'm in my 70s and any communication with long-time friends is important to me.

My bottom line is why this is such an incendiary topic when the solution for people who hate annual letters is JUST DON'T READ THEM, while those of who who like them can enjoy them.

The Dreaded Christmas Letter

I have already seen one blog entry about Christmas letters.  In her entry, "Spare Me the Details. Please," Pandionna writes:

I absolutely despise those “holiday newsletters” that some people print out and include with their cards. How utterly egotistical to think that Christmas cards are a venue for announcing Junior’s first poopie, Sister’s dance recital, Big Sister’s appearance on the honor roll, Wonder Mom’s new Etsy shop, or Daddy Dear’s new car. And heaven help us, please, cease and desist with discussion of Grampa’s gallbladder surgery or Grandma’s inadvertent overdose on Ex-Lax.

Sigh.

It's like trying to convince people not to support the Boy Scouts of America by buying a tree in their lot because of their discriminatory policies, or not to drop coins in the Salvation Army bucket because in an interview the head of the Salvation Army said that parents of gay children should be put to death. 

But this isn't a rant about those issues.  

It is beyond me why the subject of "holiday newsletters" brings up such vitriol.  'Tis the season to be jolly, after all and why be so incredibly angry about a letter that you can choose to read or not.   Nobody is holding a gun to your head to make you read it.

As Pandionna continues

The way I see it, Christmas cards are to extend season’s greetings, a way of saying hello to people to let them know you are thinking of them even if you don’t see them as much as you’d like to. They’re not a platform for attention-whoring narcissism. We have Facebook for that.

Well, Pandionna, not everybody has Facebook.  What I hate are the cards that come with someone's name preprinted on the bottom.  Someone I haven't seen in many years, who writes not one single word of greeting, shares not one thing about their life, and doesn't even take the time to sign the card itself.  But I don't know the circumstances of the person and I dunno...maybe they are paralyzed and can't write and so get someone to address a card for them.  So I don't judge.  I am just sad that the person who is extending seasons greetings, who used to be a very good friend, chooses not to even say "hi!" to me on the card he takes the time to send.

Here is what is involved in writing my yearly letter.  I spend time going back over the year, trying to remember the highlights, I choose photos that I think are interesting and I write something about each one in the family.  Some people who get my letters want to know how my mother is, some wonder what the kids are doing these days, some don't know anybody in the family but me, but like to hear about our travel, or live vicarious through the kids' adventures.  Then I design a web page and write the letter, including all the photos.  In previous years, I had it professionally printed and that involved a paste-up and a humongous bill from the printer.   In other words, I put a lot of work into it.  It is a 2-3 day job to get it all done and posted.  It is one of the fun things I do each year and there is a piece of me which feels guilty for posting it on line these days, but with the price of postage and the number of people I send it off to, it would cost more now than it used to cost to pay the printer...and it looks prettier because on line I can use color photos.

I do it because I love it and I love letting people I know something about our lives over the past year.  Just today, while writing this letter, I received emails from folks who said "Thanks so much for sharing your Christmas letter/life adventure w/me. I always look forward to getting it." "Thank you for the Christmas letter Bev. Always fun to read." "Love the annual newsletter!"

I succumbed to all those protests from annual letter haters one year and did not write the letter.  I got lots of complaints, so I continue to do it.

The reason why it bothers me so much to read entries like Pandionna's is that if you don't like the things, you don't even have to unfold the enclosed letter.   Just stick the card up on your mantle and toss the letter. In my case, you don't have to click on the link.

Our 2013 letter

But if you enjoy reading about our life, then go...enjoy...and thank you for taking the time to read it, and for letting me know that you look forward to getting it each year.  

I have a confession.  I get lots of these letters over the Christmas season.  There are some that I look forward to each year and some I don't bother reading.  But I appreciate each and every one of them, whether I read them or not, because I know the work...and the love...that goes into each one.  I don't consider them "attention-whoring narcissism" but more the desire to reach out and touch friends across the miles, and across the years.

But I always get upset hearing from the guy who was one of our best friends until he dropped out of sight about 20 years ago, who sends a card every year and never includes one single word of greeting.  Just writes his name.  Pretty card, but I want to know what he is doing these days, not that he is still able to write.

To each her own, I guess.

Whew...Thank Goodness THAT's Over

I've been procrastinating writing our Christmas letter for 2012.   I don't know why.  But I decided that I had to get it done today and so I sat down to do it.

You'd think it wouldn't be a big project, but it turned out to take all-day, minus an hour for a nap (I had been up since 4 a.m.).

The writing of it was pretty simple.  Choosing the photos was easy.  It was putting it all together that was a pain in the patootie.  It actually goes together rather simply, but then you start tweaking.  And tweaking.   And tweaking.  

I actually spent the better part of an hour just creating a graphic that says "Merry Christmas."  I knew what I wanted.  I thought I knew what kind of graphic I needed to get it.  But Photoshop just would NOT cooperate.   It's time like this when I realize that I know just enough Photoshop to be dangerous, but not enough to be competent.  In the end I sort of had what I wanted, but my plan to use a drop shadow, which worked beautifully with the .jpg file didn't work with the .gif file.

I included a collage of our Compassion kids and then realized that several of them have new photos, so I wanted to redo the collage, including the new versions.  That was kind of fun, going back and seeing the change from the the last time I did that graphic.

I went back and re-read last year's letter, interested to see how much of this year's is a repeat of last year's.  Sometimes word for word.   Obviously I have little originality.

When I had what I thought was a solid final draft, I sent it off to the family for comments, corrections, etc.  After I finally did all I could do to make it the way I wanted it, while waiting to hear from everyone, I decided to go back and read all of the Christmas letters I have on line, back to the year 2000.   The 2001 version got eaten up by Yahoo years ago but the rest of them are there.

In reading through those, I discovered at least one photo that had been named the same thing that one of the photos in this year's letter was named, so this year's photo had been substituted for the other one.  That meant I had to search through old photos, find one that would work for the old letter, get it in the right size and uplaod it to the old Christmas letter.

I don't have a clue how many people actually read our Christmas letter when it gets on line, but it's something I care about a lot and work very hard to make right, and make it suit me, if nobody else.  In the end, I'm glad I take the time, but Lord, sometimes getting it done is like pulling teeth!

One of the things that has kept me from writing the Christmas letter in November,which I usually do (continually tweaking it until I finally release it on thefirst of December) is that I've been in a kind of low-level depression for what seems like a long time.  Maybe since October when my friend Pat died, or maybe as far back as April when we lost Will Connelly.  The fact that we have lost twelve friends this year, all of which were our friends, not old friends of my mothers or elderly relatives is very depressing.  They were our age and each one of them left a big hole in our lives.

Add to that the past week, with all the fears about Bob and not knowing what is going on with him and I just wanted to sit in a chair and stare off into space.  I remembered when I was a kid and my father had a nervous breakdown.  I can still see into that pitch black living room where all you could see was the tip of his cigarette as he sat there staring off into the darkness.  (He didn't have television to stare at, unseeingly!)

And then today something happened that hurt me a lot.  It wasn't about me, but my feelings got terribly hurt and I remembered the lyrics to that song from Chicago

Cellophane
Mister cellophane
Should have been my name
Mister cellophane
'cause you can look right through me
Walk right by me
And never know I'm there!

So I was feeling all sorry for myself and dipping down into that pool of depression and then Ned called.  Just to chat.  It was such a spirit booster, chatting with him for about half an hour, that I felt downright good when we hung up.

On days like today, it's good to have children who care, even if they don't know you're hurting.

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If you want to read the Christmas letter, the direct link is here.