How to Write a Christmas Letter

(If you don't know me, understand that this is all pretty much tongue-in-cheek. I am a big fan of Christmas letters--long and short, and look forward to each and every one!)

Arminda Eberly. That's the name that springs to mind whenever mine turns to Christmas messages. A cousin of my mother's, who--in Southern parlance--wasn't quite right, Arminda always had the distinction of being the first Christmas card received at our house, usually around Thanksgiving. Arminda was the first lonely snowflake in the avalanche of Christmas mail, and was celebrated accordingly.

My mom was always a card-sender--and a card-writer. Each by hand. No carbon-copies for her. No generalized Christmas letters to be tucked inside a card and sent off as token correspondence for the season. Long before Xerox simplified our Christmas duties, my mom sent letters in every card, and received letters in return: cataloguing the goings-on in the families of friends and relations since the previous holiday season. She started on Thanksgiving weekend and had everything in the mail by the first week in December. With all the electronic assistance I have, I am still lucky to get cards in the mail by New Years.

How to write a Christmas letter? There are rules (mostly not observed, I fear..) 

  

      1)   Confine yourself to one page. That means one SIDE of one sheet of paper. And in a readable font. None of this size 6 business. Brevity is the soul of Christmas letters.

      2)   Keep it light.  If it doesn't make you smile, don't say it. There are some exceptions, as noted below. Some letters become legendary in their own time, including one we actually received that marched stoically from ‘Merry Christmas’ through an astonishingly calamitous year that incorporated heart attacks, hospitalizations, a house fire, deaths, and everything else, short of dismemberments and jail terms. (That type of recitation is now characterized as a ‘Bud Fuller’ letter. Names have been changed to protect the oh-so-guilty author.)

      3)   If it's necessary to include sad news, do it quickly and move on. "We are sad to say that Rover is now chasing squirrels in the Great Beyond, but Muffy is still with us, and continues to terrorize the mouse population."

      4)   Give a sentence or two about each family member; if you leave someone out, readers will suspect the worst--either total disgrace, or that they are up there with Rover, chasing squirrels.

      5)   Don’t brag (although it is tempting to relay the latest bon mot from your grandchild…well, maybe ONE..)

      6)   Try not to be too cute. A letter from your dog or cat is pathetic. 

     

7    7)   Never, ever give up. Friendships have survived, purely on the basis of Christmas letters, for years. You never know when someone will emerge from your past, or when you might need a contact in Podunk, Idaho. I can cite personal examples.

      8)   Include a picture, if you can. Everyone else has also 1) gotten old 2) gained weight 3) gone gray. Here’s to truth in Christmas letters!

      9)   Include your email address or website or blog address. Someone might want to respond.

    10) Add a hand-written signature, at least. It might add a few minutes to your card assembly and mail process, but it pays for it in authenticity.

And, finally…ignore the rules. At this time of year—or any time at all—people are delighted to hear from you, whether the message is cheery or doleful, short or long, humble or…well, the opposite thereof. And if Fluffy or Mittens or Spot feels the urge to take pen in his or her paw, well, who am I to discourage anthropomorphism? Life is short, and so is the season of goodwill toward men (even if it did start the day after Halloween.) Write that letter! I am waiting by my mail slot!

The Day After

I woke up that morning and the first thing I saw on my phone was a message from my daughter saying she had searched FB 'feelings' for 'despondent' and could not find the emoji for that. I lay there in bed, trying to absorb the fact that the unthinkable had actually happened. I even said that I did not want to hear the analysis of the election, or hear the inevitable speeches. I did not want to see any of the players, or candidates, or talking heads, or correspondents, or voters. I just wanted to be quiet and not have to engage with the chaos around me.

I spent most of the day doing just that. We had breakfast; I read some of my book (fiction, totally escapist); we walked down to the river and toured the tall ship that arrived here last night.  JC and I stood on the wharf and listened to what Hillary had to say to the people who had worked for her--we'd missed her concession speech. She showed class--as might be expected.

And now it's time to look the future in the eye. Inexplicably, people have made their choice and we have to live with it for four years. The country has stood for 240 years; surely we can last 4 more. There are all kinds of cliches to throw out there: what doesn't kill us makes us stronger, and stuff of that ilk. It doesn't really help. The hardest thing to deal with is the fact that there is so much brokenness in our country right now, and I'm not sure we know how to fix it. Trump isn't going to do that for us. It's up to us.

How do you gather up and neutralize all the anger and hate that elected Trump and rejected Hillary? There have been so many lies told and accusations made that I don't see how that web can be unraveled and we can all come together again. The American public has lashed out in every direction, like a maddened bull in the ring; in its confusion, it has attacked Hillary, Obama, women, Muslims, immigrants, Congress--any leader or group or institution in its path. Trump has been the matador, waving all the red flags.

We all know that those bulls in the ring die. We are, however, better than that. Given a common antagonist, even the bull-headed Congress we've experienced in the past 8 years may see fit to work together with their Democratic counterparts to thwart the death knell that Trump seemed intent upon ringing. Maybe, faced with threats to all we hold dear, we will reclaim our better selves and make room for the disaffected at the table, and think more seriously about how to put our lives back together, to reconcile our differences, and return to the government of the people, by the people, and for the people that Lincoln spoke of in the midst of another bloody period of divisiveness.

Things are much more complicated now. We are tied in knots not only because of domestic division,  but over financial effects, short and long-term; over our place in the world's uncertain economic and political spheres; over nuclear codes; and rampant conflicts in the Middle East and beyond. And we find ourselves being led by an unpredictable and quick-tempered man whose 'truth' depends on circumstance and his own convenience. Whose associates do not exactly inspire confidence, He comes with baggage, both personal and legal, and it is hard to put that all aside and offer support when we are so very much afraid of what this presidency will mean for the world, for us, and for all the people who have listened to and believed the vile and vituperative outpourings of his campaign.

Donald Trump is not the complete problem, however. He is just the most visible symptom of something deeper and darker: the image of America that we keep pushing back into our personal Pandora's box: an America that embraces prejudice and racism and intolerance, that closes its doors and its borders and its heart to those in need, that feels entitled to step on the weak in pursuit of personal gain. This is not who we are, or at least not the country we set out to be. This dystopian image is everything we have fought against for the past 240 years. We cannot give up now. We cannot turn our back on the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, 
the wretched refuse of other teeming shores.

We cannot roll up the welcome mat in New York harbor, and add conditions to those freedoms and opportunities we purport to extend to everyone: yes, you have rights, IF you are white, if you practice an acceptable religion, if you check the correct box under 'gender'. Yes, you can have medical care, and housing, and food--if you can afford it. That is not the people we aspire to be. We have lost our way, and the way home is not readily apparent. What we do know is that it does not involve imposing limitations on immigrants, religious freedom, or women's rights--limitations that would be giant steps backward in the journey that started here two hundred and forty years ago.

Election Eve

Almost over.

The long dark night of the soul 

that we call a campaign…

slithers toward dawn..

Slander, lies, half-truths,

exaggerations. 

insults and baseless 

accusations: ended.

All the auxiliary players:

the pundits and powers

who interpret

at length and armed

with selected facts, 

cherry-picked 

for their own

prognostications: silenced.

Slurs, and fights, signs

and threats

interviews and jokes,

and twitter-feeds,

debates and interruptions,

the relentless ads

that no one believes

anymore: done.

And despite the speeches,  

despite purported

scandals and misdeeds, 

deliberate or imagined,

despite the coverage, 

the inexorable and execrable

24/7 news cycle,

we are left with less, not more.

Less truth, less confidence,

less faith, less hope,

and certainly, less charity.

We are divided and distracted,

dejected and diminished,

teetering on the precipice..

Time—and tomorrow—

will tell.

Refugees

Lest we forget:

Jesus was a refugee.

Joseph and Mary, compelled

to travel-- poor and pregnant,

and unannounced—to Bethlehem,

where (no doubt) the people

(not just the innkeeper)

balked at this influx of

tired and dirty arrivals.

Who could feed and house

and clothe them all?

But one man offered them his barn…

Threatened even there,

they fled to Egypt where

other people looked at them

askance.

Living is not easy on the run:

no money, no shelter,

nowhere to go but forward,

nothing to swallow

but your pride.

Refugees.

And  today, we celebrate

in our warm and well-fed way

one refugee who taught us

how to treat the less-fortunate.

Yet, we lavish gifts upon ourselves

and ignore the faces at the window,

ignore his counsel,

ignore the need and hunger,

the cold and the homeless,

bleating out our “Merry Christmas”es

not knowing

what that means.