The Last of the Great Correspondents

When I was young and visiting my grandparents in the Flint Hills, one of the highlights of the week would be a phone call from Evelyn Mae Reidel. Evie Mae wrote a community column for the weekly Chase County Leader. Her job was to report on all of the activities in the small town where my grandparents lived. Her reports included details such as who attended a local resident's birthday party, weights of grandchildren born, household accidents that led to broken bones, and visitors who stopped by. If Evie Mae called, one was certain to appear in that week's paper. Her folksy reports kept everyone aware of the lives of the neighbors.
My grandmother used it as a chronicle of family events, and pasted each week's report into a scrapbook. 

In Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" Mr. Bennett observes " For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and to laugh at them in our turn." Certainly, my pop and I once chortled at the thought that my grandfather's prostate surgery might be reported in detail. Though Evie Mae's reports would seem folksy and charming, they were absolutely local news... and no mention was made of my grandfather's prostate. Despite joking crassly about it, I admit to cherishing these little gems of family news. 

Even today I scour through my Facebook feed looking for real news about my friends. Unfortunately, I miss some things in the sea of advertisements, political rants and platitudes. Many of my friends don't actually share real news about themselves online at all. I'm not complaining about Facebook or how my friends use Facebook, this is simply an observation that for all of the information we share on social networking media, we aren't always making personal connections with one another.

Indeed sharing personal news is a dying art, as exemplified by the much maligned Christmas newsletter. The Christmas letter is the last hold out for a dying brand of personal correspondence longer than 140 characters. I understand people are very busy, but it would be nice to see this tradition revived. It doesn't seem too much to ask someone to write one good letter a year.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of Christmas letter haters out there, and the hate is unwarranted. I understand how disenheartening it is to receive the delusional missives of familial perfection that most Christmas newsletters aspire to. As someone who has received the poison penned antithesis of these rosy hued dispatches, I'd rather read the news of your toddler's imaginary mastery of string theory than the blunt announcement that you put the dog down so you could move to a condo. Nonetheless, these abusers have ruined the Christmas letter for everyone.

To the abusers: If you really did have the perfect year, we are all so happy for you and very uncomfortable to be around you. Ditto on the discomfort if you are a heartless psychopath over-sharing your callousness for humanity.  To put it bluntly, your Christmas letters creep the rest of us out.  

I'll admit that my own Christmas letters aren't particularly compelling, but I am fortunate enough to know one person who has truly mastered the art. If we all tried to emulate him, we could resurrect  the annual Christmas letter, and perhaps personal communication.

My cousin (whose letter from last year appears above) has truly preserved the charm of a thoughtful, interesting letter in his annual mass mailing. His letters are entertaining rather than shocking. Most importantly, he writes newsy letters with the details of who visited, where he went on vacation, who made pies for the sesquicentennial of the farm, what he ate for dinner at his cousin's house. He contains everything the reader wants to know on a single page of paper. He is among the last of the great correspondents.

In the interest of preserving this art form, I've studied my cousin's letters to come up with a list of helpful tips for those who would like to give the old Christmas letter another try.

1) Don't shock anyone. Imagine that your readers are hearing all of this for the first time, especially when delivering bad news. Some readers won't know all of your news. Ease people into bad news delicately. No one ever "DIES," they sadly pass away.

2) Be engaging. Your child's tennis championship may have been a landmark event year, but the fact that your child loves to play tennis is what other people will find interesting. Choose what is important to you and imagine what your reader will find interesting about it. Answer the questions they would ask and tell them how you feel as if they were sitting in the room talking to you.

3) Show a little humility.  A self-effacing demeanor means a lot to those of us who are neither fascinating nor successful. People will always think more highly of you if you share some of your glory. Name the people who were helpful, gave you their time or made your day. 

4) Be cheerful. Your year might rival Job's life, but you should let your readers off the guilty hook by letting them know that there is hope. If you don't sound cheerful half of your friends will call you with "helpful" advice and the other half will talk about what a downer you are.

By now you are wishing Evie Mae would call and ask about your prostate, but sadly Evie Mae is no longer with us to assist in making us sound wholesome and interesting.  It is up to you to reach out to others and offer yourself in your most charming way. Writing, like any art, requires some practice to make perfect,  but I hope you will make the attempt and send me a newsy letter anyway. I know I'll get a great letter from my cousin and it would be nice to hear from you too.