Jennifer P. Tanabe

It’s that time of year when we receive Christmas letters from people we probably haven’t seen for at least a year. So they write an account of their activities, good and unfortunate, over the past year. It’s an easy way to keep a bunch of people informed about our lives.

I have to admit I’ve never written a Christmas letter. I believe that’s because when I was a child we would receive several of these letters from relatives, and they always seemed to be an exercise in one-upmanship to see who could describe the worst year ever! I never had any interest in competing with that!

Their letters, while filled with tragic events and probably quite painful for the authors, nonetheless reduced our family to tears of laughter. It was fun trying to imagine who would have the most awful thing befall them!

Later, another family member started sending Christmas letters. These were also accounts of unfortunate happenings, but he always described them with a wicked sense of humor. I think he expected us to laugh.

When I moved the States, I encountered another extreme style of Christmas letter. This is the account of an unbelievably successful year, where every family member excelled in something, brilliantly achieved (over-achieved really) all their goals, and joy and prosperity reigned supreme. I couldn’t compete with that either!

These days the Christmas letters from my contemporaries tend to include reports of someone’s year in retirement, or at least their imminent retirement in the coming year. Funny thing is, these people don’t seem to be very good at retiring! They all find part-time work, sometimes volunteer work, and their lives go on.

While I don’t do the Christmas letter thing, I have to admit I enjoy Christmas cards. And I mean the old-fashioned actual cards that go by snail mail. I tried ecards one year, but didn’t find it very satisfying. Probably people were afraid to open them.

The reason I like Christmas cards, apart from the obvious keeping in touch with distant friends and family, is I enjoy receiving them! Now, it’s not a kind of “quid pro quo” thing, it’s that I love the sight of my living room decorated with lots of festive cards. The Christmas spirit is so joyful and bright (when it’s not over commercialized). And I just want to share that joy. I hope that those who receive my cards feel the same kind of spirit.

Maybe if I could write a Christmas letter that would share that warmth and joy and hope that the cards evoke, I would do it. But then it wouldn’t really be about my family’s year. So, I’ll just stick to the cards and wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a wonderful next year.