Almaden Resident

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Christmas letter writing: a family's annual review

By Dave Kehmeier

I'm in the process of writing my annual Christmas letter. More precisely, I'm trying to get started on it. We had a good year. Some of it was even interesting. So it's not that I don't have anything to write about. I'm just having a hard time coming up with cheap laughs at the expense of my family, which is what my Christmas letters generally consist of. Maybe it's because I used up all the good material in the columns I've written during the year.

Part of the problem is, it's freezing in the house. Even if I could think of something to write, my fingers are on a hypothermic hiatus. In fact, I'm pretty sure I just saw my breath, even though the thermostat claims it's a balmy 64 degrees inside. I'm the only one home in the middle of the day, so it doesn't make sense to maintain the house at a habitable temperature just for my sake. Besides, I'm getting into the holiday spirit by saving on natural gas to compensate for the extra electricity we're spending on Christmas lights. Maybe I should go huddle up with a string or two of them.

Speaking of Christmas lights, we had a cul-de-sac decorating party a few days ago. The idea was for all the neighbors to come out and help each other put up their icicle lights and inflatable Santas, and then consume a bunch of empty calories that everyone contributed. One now very popular neighbor showed up with the makings for chocolate martinis. As a result, not a lot of decorating got accomplished. That's probably a good thing, considering ladders would have been involved in stringing the lights. We mostly stood around enjoying the chocolate martinis, and talked about putting up decorations while the kids played in the street. I'm looking forward to the neighborhood undecorating party in January.

I didn't care much for Christmas letters until I had kids, which is when I started writing them. Somehow, our family life suddenly seemed uniquely newsworthy when they came along. It wasn't true, of course, but that didn't faze me. My early Christmas letters contained a lot of diaper humor.

Now I'm a big fan of the genre. I truly look forward to the annual updates on the lives of far-flung friends and relatives, mostly so I can see if my kids are growing up better than theirs.

But my favorite Christmas letters are from a friend I met when I was in college. Actually, she's an old girlfriend. OK, an ex-fiancée. In the spirit of the season, though, I won't go into that. Her life turned out pretty well despite getting involved with me during my formative years, when I probably should have been largely avoided by the opposite sex. She married a nice guy, lives in a beautiful house they built in Colorado and doesn't have kids, which is to say her Christmas letters are both non-threatening and very intriguing to me.

Ex doesn't work, and her husband travels frequently for his job. Sometimes she travels on business with him, and with all their frequent flier miles, they take lots of fantastic vacations to all sorts of exotic, warm places. Her letters contain detailed accounts of these trips, including where they went, what they saw and did, the name of the hotel where they stayed, what they ate, et (multi-page) cetera. Reading her letters, it's easy to picture myself being right there with them, not that my wife would condone that sort of visualization.

I prefer Christmas letters, but I don't mind Christmas cards if they include personal notes or come with a box of goodies. The Christmas photo cards from Walgreens don't do much for me, though. Most of these arrive without so much as a signature, as if to say, "Hello. We're alive, but we're terribly busy. Here's what our kids look like these days when they're cleaned up and facing the same direction." Actually, I don't mind getting photo cards from close friends. I already know if my kids are turning out better than theirs and anyway, all I need from them is an updated picture for the refrigerator in case we ever invite them over.

This year's crop of Christmas letters and cards are starting to come in. The pressure's on. Geez, how hard can it be to come up with some funny stories for my Christmas letter? At this point, I don't even care if they reflect actual events.

Aw, the heck with it. I'm going outside where it's warm and hang some Christmas lights.

Then maybe I'll head over to Walgreens.

Dave Kehmeier can be reached at djkehmeier@sbcglobal.net.