some bragged about children; others threw them to the wolves

December 3, 2020 11:21 AM

Shedd, Oregon. December 25, 1948. “Dear Friends,” wrote Marie Bussard, a homesick mother of three. “Now that Christmas is here again... we find that there is too much news to fit into a note on each card. We have borrowed this idea of a Christmas News Letter from our friends the Chambers and the Danns.” So they’re the ones to blame. A year-end ritual we have learned to love and hate simultaneously, the holiday newsletter has always been Americanish—efficient, egalitarian and increasingly secular.
posted by sciatrix (13 comments total)

I have been discussing Holiday newsletters with my friends this year for one of the reasons noted in the article: They are historical documents of the times. Although I’m sure many of them would say the same thing (baked bread, worked from home, etc.), I’d be very interested to start getting these this year and in the years to come. (I’m 38; maybe it’s also my age?)
posted by CMcG at 11:39 AM on December 3, 2020 [3 favorites]

And a few veered into the dangerous territory of politics. One included a 1940s verse imagining Franklin D. Roosevelt telling the Devil why he should be allowed into hell. “I ruined their country, their lives, & then / I placed the blame on my ‘9 Old Men.’”

I always thought of these newsletters as precursors to Facebook, and apparently I was more correct than I knew.
posted by Countess Elena at 11:43 AM on December 3, 2020 [9 favorites]

One of my favorite old holiday listens is Merry Medical Christmas (soundcloud), where Chicago DJs Kathy and Judy read holiday newsletters full of inappropriately graphic holiday newsletters, spiced up with brief holiday song clips. Note: Butts and various organs and poo are mentioned.
posted by answergrape at 11:46 AM on December 3, 2020 [3 favorites]

Last year we sent our end-of-year update as a simple Twine game, with options that would let people follow along with adventures I had, or ones my partner had, or ones we both had, or red herrings that never actually happened. I don't know how much people enjoyed getting it, but we had a lot of fun writing it! Probably relevant that we'd both abandoned facebook by then, so we weren't generally telling folks things they already knew about.
posted by solotoro at 11:52 AM on December 3, 2020 [6 favorites]

I don't understand the hate that Christmas letters get.
If you don't like them, fine, no one is forcing you to read it.
It seems a little Grinchian to complain about what is basically a harmless tradition.

Personally, my family likes getting updates on things, how your kids are doing in whatever they do, if you've got a new job, etc.
Not everyone is in constant contact with everyone they exchange Christmas cards with, so why not include a little note to tell us how you are doing?
posted by madajb at 2:28 PM on December 3, 2020 [4 favorites]

We received these a lot when I was a kid, and it was always comforting (sometimes amusing, sometimes eye-roll-inducing) to hear what people we knew, mostly my parents' friends, were up to. The thought that they were living their lives in parallel with ours, just a few states or an ocean away, always made me feel cozy and connected.

The letters have fallen away, in favor of photo cards, but they still remain largely the responsibility of women. I read this article earlier today after finding it linked in one of AHP's Culture Study pieces ("The Mom Does It") and found it helpful in sorting through my own feelings around the gendered, invisible work of the holidays, which holiday cards and letters seem emblematic of.

I swore I'd never send my own holiday cards (start as you mean to go on!) but this year has been so lonely that the chatty holiday letters of old are becoming more and more appealing to me, even if all they contain is some variation of "we stayed inside all year, that's it the end".
posted by stellaluna at 2:43 PM on December 3, 2020 [3 favorites]

Erma Bombeck's Christmas letter to Martha Stewart and her response to said letter. (A few sites indicate that Martha wrote first.)
posted by shoesietart at 2:46 PM on December 3, 2020 [2 favorites]

I did a letter every year from 91 (when we got married) to the early 2000s, then started posting photo slide shows for a few years. Once FB became ubiquitous it seemed redundant, so I quit altogether. The last few years I've started up again, sending a Christmas card or postcard, with maybe a paragraph update on what we've been up to. My older relatives that aren't necessarily paying attention on FB seem to appreciate it.

This year it's a "Happy New Year, we survived 2020 card."
posted by COD at 2:51 PM on December 3, 2020 [1 favorite]

We make New Years photo cards to send to people (particularly friends and family in Japan where it is expected). This is a good reminder that I need to get on that soon.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 3:12 PM on December 3, 2020 [1 favorite]

On a related note...David Sedaris's Season's Greetings To Our Friends and Family! (Disclaimer: something very bad happens to a baby, incest comes up as an issue)
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:38 PM on December 3, 2020 [2 favorites]

Another year, another sustained avalanche of mayhem and calamity both for the Random family and perpetrated by them. Full details available to all who subscribe to our Patreon.
posted by philip-random at 3:53 PM on December 3, 2020

My parents always used to make fun of people who wrote self-promoting holiday letters, but honestly, I've always really liked them. I don't use social media and at this point I hear what's going on with my nieces and nephews once a year in their family letters.

My favorite is my cousin's because they've had their kids write the letters for years and they're pretty minimally edited, so they've got a lot of personality. For the past few years their youngest has written them and I like that she makes gentle fun of her sisters and parents in her letter. We actually got this year's in the mail today.
posted by potrzebie at 10:27 PM on December 3, 2020 [1 favorite]

I have only a few friends who send them, but I appreciate them greatly. I also love getting photo cards (but always want it to be the whole family and not just the kids).
posted by The corpse in the library at 11:32 AM on December 4, 2020