To my brother’s stepdaughter: Ya know, you never speak to us at family events. You obviously have no use for us and think we’re evil because we’re liberal elites. You and your macho fuck of a husband and your annoying children all think you’re the perfect family, when in fact you’re just a bunch of self-centered assholes.
So why do you feel duty-bound to send us one of your tedious, whiny Christmas “letters” every single fucking year? You were sick the whole month of June? I DON’T GIVE A FUCK! Your dog has the clap? I DON’T GIVE A FUCK! Those figurines made out of moose turds didn’t come out looking like movie stars? I DON’T GIVE A FUCK! You’re an annoying, pseudo-intellectual, arrogant asshole and I DON’T GIVE A FUCK about you or your annoying brats or your petty problems.
I never have gotten the xmas letter hate. I’ve never sent one and it is a certainty that I never will but I like to read them, even if it’s from someone I barely know. If the guy pisses you off so much, just toss it in the trash unopened.
I actually look forward to a few of my wife’s relatives and friends’ Christmas letters, simply for the sheer irony value of reading them out loud in a pretentious voice. There’s a couple of people who consistently manage to infuse self-satisfaction and sanctitude into the most banal of life events, along with some fairly questionable grammar. It’s really quite a scream.
That’s exactly what I came in here to say. Just throw it away if you really don’t care as much as you say you don’t. <shrug> Why get yourself this worked up over something so easily discarded, especially at the holiday season?
Whenever I think of pulling that kind of crap, my idea is to write a completely content-free letter and mail it to them year after year to see if anyone notices.
I didn’t say I hate ALL of them. We get a couple from friends living overseas that are amusing and informative. This bitch gives me the thousand mile stare whenever we happen to run into each other, most recently at a family wedding. Oh, and I did exactly as you suggested and pitched the fucking thing without opening it. The content I described was from past letters that I made the mistake of reading.
I once got a letter from a person who had once been a friend, but we’d drifted apart (due to distance and changes in life) who I just didn’t talk to all that often. It wasn’t a “Christmas Letter” due to the fact that it showed up in some non-Christmas season, but the content was identical. And while reading it, all I could think was “Bitch.” I hadn’t really had any animosity toward her before, but the language and tone of that missive created it. When I failed to respond (the letter didn’t really invite response any more than a Christmas letter does), She re-sent the fucking thing. Nailed shut the coffin of that acquaintanceship.
The tone of the things invites hatred. I can only imagine if I’d actively disliked someone who sent me one.
I’m not a letter hater really, but definitely a :rolleyes: kind of person. I’ve never gotten one that didn’t, under the surface, smack of self-importance. Not that it’s self-important per se to want to catch up with old friends, or even brag on your kids or spouse or whatever, don’t get me wrong. But the ones we get are usually in the third person, as though written by the family’s biographer. A biographer who apparently gets paid by the average syllable count of the words used. Perhaps she is wrong, but Tamara feels that referring to herself in third person is beyond pompous.
And they’re always this schizophrenic mix of major stuff that people you know and care about should already know, and really detailed stuff that only the ones who are invested enough to know the other stuff would care about. Seriously, if someone doesn’t know that you graduated college, moved halfway across the country, or had a child…one of the other of you obviously doesn’t give shit one, because you’ve made not the first shred of effort at staying in each other’s lives. You might as well save yourself the stamp and them the effort of skimming and tossing it. People who do keep up with your life enough to want to hear the handful of details already know the majority of the letter. Again, you might as well save yourself the stamp.
And the ones we’ve gotten haven’t even been signed by hand. These people are so invested in reaching out to folks they’ve not been in contact with all year they can’t even be arsed to scribble down their own names, and yet somehow I’m supposed to take the time out of my life, at one of the busiest times of the year, and read this drivel from people who don’t think I rate a signature? Jeez, full of yourself much?
My parents got one last year from some distant relations, which included pictures of Great Uncle Bob or whoever next to his new boat, which they’d bought used and needed to fix up. About a quarter of the letter was a long list of exactly how much each step cost - a few thousand for new sails, a few thousand for a new anchor, and so on. There was no possible subtext beyond, “Hey, look how much money we have!” :rolleyes:
This has inspired me. I’m going to write an e-xmas letter out to this year. I’ll probably make sure that anyone I’d think of sending it to would understand the sarcastic schmuck that is me though.
I don’t get the hate either, but that may be because I’ve never gotten an obnoxious one. The only one I get is delightful.
Might it be possible for someone to post the actual content of one of these letters? Names changed, blah blah. I don’t doubt that they are obnoxious, but it’s a little hard to imagine how they can be that bad.
Amplified by spending many a pre-Christmas morning hearing my mother read out what she considers interesting, in a letter written by somebody nobody else knows.
My simple rule: If you didn’t tell them when it happened, why tell them just because it’s Christmas?
I’m not a fan of the letter. If I’m not in touch with you regularly, I probably don’t want to know that your Aunt Hilda died this past summer, blah, blah, blah. I drop a personal note to people I haven’t seen in a while but still care about. TheLetter isn’t the worst thing in the world, but I certainly wouldn’t miss them if they stopped sending them.
My father’s boss used to send one that highlighted which Ivy League school someone graduated from, and the hilarious mixup where they were all supposed to meet at Telluride for skiing but one branch of the family got mixed up and went to the Alps instead. Just the kind of stuff the underlings want to hear.:rolleyes: