The apology was completely sincere. I’m not sure what you read into it, but your last post is kind of ironic.
Daniel
Count me as another one who likes the Christmas letters. Yes, many of them are from people I don’t hear much from during the year. I like those too. There are many reasons why we’ve lost contact, and it’s nice to get a card and letter and know I’m still in their thoughts around the holidays. I also like hearing about their major accomplishments and the things that make them proud.
However, I do understand the annoyance at the overly-braggy letters. Just as in normal conversation, there are some people who feel little Suzie’s every minor accomplishment needs to be trumpeted from the rooftops as if she were the only child to ever score a goal, get a 3.57 GPA, or sing a solo. It’s hard to explain, but some boasting is acceptable to me when it’s something you’re genuinely proud of. Other boasting comes from the “my kid is the bestest that ever was and I’m going to use every opportunity to tell you about it” place.
Yeah, because spending 15 seconds doing a search is equivalent to stalking. I guess some people’s lame rants are more imoprtant than others, right?
This is my fault, i guess. When i observed that this is one of the issues on which you tend to be a self-righteous prig, i should have realized that this was unlikely to change.
Maybe you need to look in the self-righteous-prig mirror, asshole. You’re generally a reasonable person, too, but you seem to have a real bug up your ass right now. If I gave a shit, it’d be a problem.
Daniel
Project much?
:dubious:
Apparently you do, considering that my observation about your own inane rant caused you to imply that i’m stalking you.
I enjoy the Christmas letters I get. I do enjoy hearing good news about people, and I especially enjoy hearing good new about people I know.
No, my cousins and I are not close. I exchanged more mail with one of my cousins while she was in Iraq for six months than, I had with all of my other cousins for the last 5 years. So, their Christmas letters are my way of finding out what is going on in their lives. I like hearing that kids have graduated from High School, or that someone got recognized for 10 years on the job. It is nice to know that good things are happening to people.
I am with** LHoD** here, if you know me well enough to have my home address and want to spend the $0.37 to mail me a card with a note about your life - go for it. I will read the note, smile, throw out the note, put the card on the wall, and go on with my day.
I don’t have any problem with Christmas letters, but I thinking bragging about one’s kids is pretty obnoxious, whether you do it in a letter or in person.
OK, I’m probably totaly missing the point here (this frequently happens when I post in the pit :wally ). But, what’s the real downside of Christmas newsletters? You get the obnoxious braggy ones and get to spend quality time with your family members mocking out the senders :D. Or you get the nice informative ones from folks you want to hear from. Life is good. 
Sinjin; who’s kids, husband and life are sooooooo much better than your’s it would lead to wailing and disaffection in every recipient, if she ever sent out a Christmas newsletter. 
And yes, fear not, I have used up my supply of smilies for the year.
I like Christmas newsletters. I like fruitcake too.
I enjoy hearing what old friends are up to. I like seeing pictures of their kids. I like sending out our news so that people are caught up with us. I always write a little personal note on it too–it does kind of bug me when there isn’t something personal on there–and I don’t brag. I just tell something about what we’re up to and hope to hear from them too. I’m actually pretty annoyed that a couple of people didn’t send letters with their cards–even though I know what’s going on with them. I want all the news I can get.
I can’t say I get a lot of braggy ones. Maybe I’m just insensitive! But I like knowing about accomplishments and stuff; I don’t feel competitive about it. Yay for them, is what I say.
It’s definitely NOT only an American tradition. I’m surprised that it survives past the advent of email though. When I was young anyone with a busy household and friends far-flung would send and recieve those. They weren’t hard to take back then, because it wasn’t about bragging. It was more like Suzie’s in ice skating, Timmy’s learning piano, etc. The focus has changed with the times.
My favourite one of recent memory was from a woman recently divorced who’d gone off to live with her adult daughter and son-in-law. The letter recited every horrible thing that had happened to them over the course of the year. Daughter’s miscarriage and on and on. Often those letters will be enclosed in a family photo style card. This photo of the three of them was absolutely bizarre. They wore jaunty little Santa’s hats, but the desperation in the son-in-laws eyes was unmistakable.
And I like making Christmas cake - it’s like stirring up a witch’s brew.
I just want to add that I’m eating a piece of fruitcake RIGHT NOW! And it’s very, very yummy.
Oh, wait … it’s all gone.
I’m having a hard time believing that nobody has mentioned the most awesomest christmas letter ever, titled Seasons Greetings to our Friends and Family!, by David Sedaris. It is read aloud by Julia Sweeney here (You want the RealAudio (sorry) of “A Very Special Sedaris Christmas”, and it starts about 15 minutes into the stream; it’s the only thing in that show read by a woman, if that helps you skim through to the right place.) Definitely worth a listen, and the other acts in that show are pretty darned funny too.
I’m going to make a blanketly offensive statement, then cover my butt.
Everyone who writes is egotistical.
Think about it. You write on here because you want to share your opinion and knowledge with everyone else. If you just wanted to go to a place where people shared ideas and read what they had to say, you’d be a lurker.
Each of us wants to put our opinions down. Everyone here honestly thinks that either there’s people here who want to know what they have to say or that they have something of importance to impart. How self-centered is that – to think that these random online people really care how you feel? Even if you’re just here to inform.
Now, obviously this isn’t a bad thing. People here really DO care what you think. There’s SDMB-based support groups and real-life friends and marriages and all that. There’s an entire section of this board focused on little things that happen in our real lives. Is everyone who reads and posts there no better than a once-yearly braggart?
For the record, no, I don’t send out these letters. Most of the people who care what happens to me are in communication with me via email or phone or somesuch. My mom used to send them out, and though they were generally a fairly rosy picture of our lives, they were only on the rosy side of realistic. “LPN’s car was totaled in a hit and run accident, but she was unharmed. Lesson learned – try not to drive around Rutland in the middle of the night. LPN!Dad had a mild heart attack in June while playing basketball. He’s doing fine now, though all the butter in the house has been replaced with Smart Balance. And yes, I HAVE noticed.” It would have been better to keep in touch with Aunt Darlene all year rather than send that letter, but then again, she’s the one who sent me a different cheap plastic ornament with some sort of prayer card every year, so the holiday letter was payback.* 
Possibly they think you do care. Moreover, they might wonder how you’re doing, how your kids (assuming you have any) are. They might be pleased as punch to get a similar letter back from you. They might actually, well, care.
As for the overly cheerful angle… well, I’d rather not hear JUST about how wretched everyone’s life is. Some lumps in with the good wouldn’t be untoward, but I have friends just like a lot of other people have mentioned – the sort who are GLAD to sit on the phone with you for two hours bemoaning every last detail of their misery and will. Not. Get. Off. The. Subject.
Aaaaaand, just to top it all off, I like fruitcake. At least, the huge ninety-pound thing my mother baked and soaked in… brandy, I think, for a good month before putting marzipan on it was delightful. The only reason it lasted as long as it did was that one small slice of it could feed a family of four.
- Not entirely fair. One year she did send a rather thoughtful little soccer-ball-wielding girl. I treasure that ornament. Then again, there was the year that she JUST sent the psychotic prayer card and no ornament. I was obscurely hurt by that.
Good point. Hubby and I chuckled a few years back over his brother’s Christmas letter. He’s always bragging about his church and charitable activities.
In that letter he said he was working on a new addition to their church, and that he was building a new deck on his house. Since we know from personal experience who gets the best food donated to their church’s food bank, we enjoyed speculating about the lumber used in his deck.
Dude, what the fuck is your problem? Hey, if you don’t like reading people’s rants about Christmas letters, than just don’t open them! Problem solved!
See, the issue with that sort of smug suggestion is that very few of us really have the capacity to just completely ignore the things that bother us. That’s why we have the pit here - to blow off steam about shit that bugs us. Since the reasoning you keep asking the OP to apply would apply just as well to yourself, I’m sure you can understand why it’s not that easy just to ignore things.
Anyway, you might consider stepping away from this because you seem to have momentarily lost all reason. Since this isn’t your general habit, I suggest you not participate further in this thread to avoid what’s apparently quite a touchy subject for you.
Oh, boy. I like to receive Christmas letters, and I also send them. Hate fruitcake, though.
Got to admit that the rancor against the letters in this post completely floored me. I don’t think of my letters as braggy, nor do I think of them as a substitute for communication – though in some cases they probably are just such a substitute. For instance, I send them to my grandparents’ friends who live in various far-flung areas of the country. These folks are well over 80, no e-mail, and seem genuinely tickled by the picture of our family I include and the small descriptions of what everyone’s up to, tucked inside a card with a short hand-written message. I also send them to people I know and talk to on a regular basis, even though they probably know most of what’s in the letter already. I like to get theirs, too, even if I already know what might be in it. It’s interesting to hear how they describe events I’ve also been party to.
I never figured that I could actually be infuriating someone with the letter; makes me feel guilty for sending anything. But then, mine are more the “my husband lost his job this past year, but now we’re doing okay” sort. Not that content, apparently, makes all that much of a difference to the letter-loathers.
Mrs. Furthur
The problem really is not with her not ignoring things that annoy her: it’s with her vitriol directed toward folks who mean no offense that makes her so sour and bitter-sounding. Frankly, I think it’s you who’s lost all reason in this thread. Note that there are many people who profess enjoyment of Christmas letters. So what are the senders to do? Must they exercise telepathic powers to determine who’s going to enjoy the letters and who’s not? Or is it up to the receiver, who knows whether they enjoy them, to make the decision whether to open them?
mhendo, in a desperate attempt to show hypocrisy on my part, links me toward a thread wherein I incorrectly pitted a restaurant for incompetence, expressing exasperation for them and their business plan. (I was wrong: they’re still around, and finally seem to have found a working formula). His holier-than-thou tone, his sense of calmly judging me, is the essence of what he accused me of; it’s convinced me that he’s kind of contemptible, but no more.
I’m responding to this because I do respect you; otherwise, I’ve left the thread.
Daniel
Not much to add here, but I’ll chime in as another voice expressing dismay at the contempt for the semi-traditional Christmas letter. Sure, they’re not perfect; they’re certainly not above mocking or being Pitted for their banality. But I think Brynda summed it up perfectly by pointing out the Christmas letter “isn’t a regular letter.” My take on the hate for these things is that people are treating them as if they are.
The Christmas letter is, by nature, a whitewashed list of the year’s family highlights. That is the framework in which the writer has to work, or at least use as a starting point. If he or she can inject some humor or creativity into the letter given the constrictions, that’s great, but not everyone is that talented a writer. Hell, I’m having trouble just composing this lame-o post.
You may not care that little Timmy learned to poop in the potty this year – hey, I don’t either – but, let’s face it, Timmy is only two and that’s the most interesting thing he did this year, and damned if he’s going to be left out of the Christmas letter.
As for the idea that friends and family should stay in better contact throughout the year instead of needing to use the Xmas letter to keep loved ones informed, well, yeah, but people move away, sometimes get busy with work and family responsibilities, and can’t always afford big phone bills. Yes, the Xmas letter goes to a mailing list and is targeted to a pretty general audience, which makes it less personable for you. Still, time was taken to share thoughts with you; certainly it would have been easier to buy one fewer card, pay for one fewer stamp, make one fewer photocopy and maintain one fewer mailing address.
For the record, I’ve never composed one of these things; I’m not inclined to until I’m sharing a life with someone and there’s enough material. But I certainly enjoy receiving them. And I love fruitcake. Well, good fruitcake. Admittedly, bad fruitcake is truly awful.
Add me to the list of people who like them.
I don’t read every one’s with equal interest, of course.
My former co-worker had a neat one this year. I’ve never met her boys, and she’s never met my son (This was from a job I had in another state 14 years ago!). Her sons said they wanted to know more about the kids on the holiday card list, so they developed a questionnaire of favorites (favorite food, teacher, sport, color, etc) and answered it and asked that kids answer it and send it to them. It gave me a different sense of her sons than I usually get from her (generally-not-boastful) holiday letter. Plus my son is geeked about sending an answer back.
We do a holiday letter but I don’t enclose it with every card. I know not everyone gives a shit about my life. I probably don’t successfully filter every person who loathes the letter, but I hopefully pare off a good number of them.