# The annual Christmas letter **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 6, 2008, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-annual-christmas-letter/476013 "2008-12-06T16:58:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2008, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-annual-christmas-letter/476013/21 "2008-12-07T01:55:24Z")
> [@Mr Bus Guy](#): > > 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. > > Dogs can get the clap? :eek: What is the sound of one dog clapping? ---
**Author:** ![Elenfair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/cc9497/32.png) [@Elenfair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elenfair)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2008, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-annual-christmas-letter/476013/22 "2008-12-07T01:59:20Z")
Oooh God, don’t get me started. Christmas cards just aren’t really something we _do_ in French Canadian (or maybe Franco-Ontarian?) culture, let alone Christmas _Letters_. Moving to the US – the midwest, no less – and marrying into a good ol’ american family (with Polish-German roots) has parachuted me into some interesting traditions, let me tell you. My mother in law sends out a Christmas Letter every year. It horrifies me in so many ways. I feel like sending out apologies to the friends and family who receive it – I understand that she’s mostly only proud of us all, but… ::: whimper ::: This year? It’s gonna be worse. lno and I are expecting the first grandchild in mid February. I dread the Christmas Letter. Save me, Electric Jeebus! ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2008, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-annual-christmas-letter/476013/23 "2008-12-07T02:33:26Z")
> [@CrazyCatLady](#): > > \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.\ That sounds like the kind of trailer trash that shows up on Judge Judy, suing their brother over an old, broken-down 1985 Pontiac, and using phrases like, “So myself and my brother went out to inspect the vehicle…” :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![DeadlyAccurate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac91a4/32.png) [@DeadlyAccurate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeadlyAccurate)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2008, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-annual-christmas-letter/476013/24 "2008-12-07T02:42:49Z")
> [@Khadaji](#): > > Every year I tell myself I will start a game thread where I get Dopers to help me form a far-fetched Christmas letter. Every year I forget. > > I think it could be fun: > > While hiking the Himalayas I stopped to teach calculus to a family of yetis. > > I would send it out too. > > Maybe I’ll remember next year. After returning from our whirlwind tour of the ten continents, including the two that no longer exist and the one of which we are not allowed to speak, we arrived home to find it inhabited by a family of penguins. It took some time to sort out the sleeping arrangements, but now everyone gets along great and we have fresh fish for dinner every night. ---
**Author:** ![ENugent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/4af34b/32.png) [@ENugent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ENugent)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2008, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-annual-christmas-letter/476013/25 "2008-12-07T05:23:45Z")
My 95-year-old grandmother sends one every year. She has told me that this year’s will begin, “I am embarrassed to admit that I am still alive…” ---
**Author:** ![Sapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2008, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-annual-christmas-letter/476013/26 "2008-12-07T09:27:05Z")
> [@ENugent](#): > > My 95-year-old grandmother sends one every year. She has told me that this year’s will begin, “I am embarrassed to admit that I am still alive…” And then the whole family starts fretting that she is depressed and hoping for death, because God forbid someone is making fun of the Christmas letter. ---
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/21906_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2008, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-annual-christmas-letter/476013/27 "2008-12-07T14:45:59Z")
Years ago, the wife of my husband’s boss sent us their holiday-gram, written in third person. I think I’d met her once, and I don’t recall that I’d ever met the kids. It was the stereotypical horrid brag-a-thon - I had to read it just to see how awful it was. Fortunately it only happened once. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2008, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-annual-christmas-letter/476013/28 "2008-12-07T14:47:07Z")
Last year my boss didn’t even send his out to us, he just brought a copy of his to our desks. ---
**Author:** ![CrazyCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CrazyCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyCatLady)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2008, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-annual-christmas-letter/476013/29 "2008-12-07T15:28:15Z")
> [@featherlou](#): > > That sounds like the kind of trailer trash that shows up on Judge Judy, suing their brother over an old, broken-down 1985 Pontiac, and using phrases like, “So myself and my brother went out to inspect the vehicle…” :rolleyes: Nah, he’s just a bit of a pompous ass. Overall a pretty good guy, but kind of a pompous ass. The sort of guy who “is matriculated” instead of just graduating like the rest of us. ---
**Author:** ![Enola\_Gay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ab097/32.png) [@Enola\_Gay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Gay)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2008, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-annual-christmas-letter/476013/30 "2008-12-07T16:03:14Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > 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. Chefguy, you are missing out on a **golden opportunity** here to MOCK the pretentious bitch. The real beauty of receiving a Christmas letter from someone you hate, is that you can ridicule them mercilessly in the privacy of your own home over cocktails. It’s a guaranteed good time and you really need to get on board. And if that leaves you wanting for more, you can always take a red pen and edit all the factual and grammatical mistakes, then return it to the sender. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2008, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-annual-christmas-letter/476013/31 "2008-12-07T19:22:28Z")
> [@Enola\_Gay](#): > > Chefguy, you are missing out on a **golden opportunity** here to MOCK the pretentious bitch. The real beauty of receiving a Christmas letter from someone you hate, is that you can ridicule them mercilessly in the privacy of your own home over cocktails. It’s a guaranteed good time and you really need to get on board. > > And if that leaves you wanting for more, you can always take a red pen and edit all the factual and grammatical mistakes, then return it to the sender. Nah, I’d rather attack her anonymously on a message board. Seriously, I don’t want to alienate my brother and his wife by reacting to something that is, in reality, a minor annual annoyance. I just felt like venting, is all. ---
**Author:** ![lorene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/65b543/32.png) [@lorene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lorene)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2008, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-annual-christmas-letter/476013/32 "2008-12-07T21:08:05Z")
> [@ENugent](#): > > My 95-year-old grandmother sends one every year. She has told me that this year’s will begin, “I am embarrassed to admit that I am still alive…” See, now, I think this is cute. The one year that someone in my husband’s family was having a sex-change operation, the letters were fairly interesting. ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2008, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-annual-christmas-letter/476013/33 "2008-12-07T21:10:25Z")
> [@CrazyCatLady](#): > > 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? Amen. A friend finally stopped sending the damned things and I am glad of it. It was just a bunch of stuff about how many games she’d gone to, concerts she’d attended, brunches she’d eaten, yada yada. (As if I didn’t know all of this already, since she reports everything on a regular basis anyway…but the rest of the world has to know about it too.) My cousin sends a short one that both brags about her kids’ achievements and her own martyrdom when she “gets talked into” doing things for their clubs, school, etc. Shredder, here I come. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2008, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-annual-christmas-letter/476013/34 "2008-12-07T23:46:56Z")
It was always kind of amusing to see, when I was in high school, what my mom thought up to say about underachieving Nintendo-playing me in the Christmas letter. ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Bean](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_bean/32/1760_2.png) [@Green\_Bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Bean)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2008, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-annual-christmas-letter/476013/35 "2008-12-08T00:08:56Z")
> [@Anne\_Neville](#): > > It was always kind of amusing to see, when I was in high school, what my mom thought up to say about underachieving Nintendo-playing me in the Christmas letter. What does she say about you in the Christmas letter now that you’re Jewish? ---
**Author:** ![Hazle\_Weatherfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Hazle\_Weatherfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hazle_Weatherfield)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2008, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-annual-christmas-letter/476013/36 "2008-12-08T02:46:03Z")
> [@ENugent](#): > > My 95-year-old grandmother sends one every year. She has told me that this year’s will begin, “I am embarrassed to admit that I am still alive…” That’s great! I heart your granny and hope she lives many more healthy years! ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2008, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-annual-christmas-letter/476013/37 "2008-12-08T13:12:39Z")
> [@Khadaji](#): > > Every year I tell myself I will start a game thread where I get Dopers to help me form a far-fetched Christmas letter. Every year I forget. > > I think it could be fun: > > While hiking the Himalayas I stopped to teach calculus to a family of yetis. > > I would send it out too. > > Maybe I’ll remember next year. My parents get one like that each year from their friends - they are hilarious. “During summer vacation at the lake, our youngest son, Justin, learned to walk on water.” ---
**Author:** ![PunditLisa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4af34b/32.png) [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2008, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-annual-christmas-letter/476013/38 "2008-12-08T13:52:12Z")
My hatred towards Christmas letters (and fruitcake) culminated in this eggnog-enhanced rant, way back in 2005: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=350045](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=350045) ---
**Author:** ![MissTake](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/misstake/32/3189_2.png) [@MissTake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MissTake)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2008, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-annual-christmas-letter/476013/39 "2008-12-08T13:52:27Z")
TheKid has a half-sister. Her mother likes to send out Xmas letters which are full of the bragging blahblahs. This years letter includes her amazing trip to Australia, info on her new car, how wonderful her child is in the various activities her mother forced her into. Of course there’s nothing about her arrests, child protection services, the reason behind having to buy a new car (she has now totaled 13 cars in the 12 years I’ve known her), and thanks to having spent so much on her trip, car, and court services she’s now filing bankruptcy. The letter I can laugh at knowing how selective she is in the info provided. What I cannot stand is the accompanying photo page she always adds. It’s not just a family portrait kind of thing, rather she crops and slaps pics on the page willy nilly. They are almost all Glamour Shots types of pics - including JonBenet type makeup on her 8 year old daughter (EUW) and posed pics of her lounging against her new car like a bad pin up. She adds captions that have little bearing to the picture in cutesy almost unreadable font. The whole thing is hideous. And she always calls to make sure I’ve received it and read it. Ugh. ---
**Author:** ![Sapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2008, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-annual-christmas-letter/476013/40 "2008-12-08T14:02:15Z")
> [@PunditLisa](#): > > My hatred towards Christmas letters (and fruitcake) culminated in this eggnog-enhanced rant, way back in 2005: > > [Shove your Christmas Letter right up your chimney - The BBQ Pit - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=350045) Now I miss **Left Hand of Dorkness**. 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-annual-christmas-letter/476013.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-annual-christmas-letter/476013.md?page=3)