CHRISTMAS LETTER TIME

Here are a few ideas to make your holiday newsletters thoughtful, fresh and fun. Feel free to nab a few for your own this year.

• Get an angle.

• Use one of your family’s interests as a theme. Or consider a general theme like “Ten Things We’re Grateful for This Christmas.”

• Make someone laugh.

• What’s the funniest thing that happened to you this year? Tell that story as your holiday letter each year, and you’ll be the all-time hit of everybody’s mantel card collections.

• Let everyone throw in his or her two cents.

• Each family member writes a little bit about their year. You can even write a blurb from the family pet’s point of view.

• Include festive quotes.

• Inspirational or cheerful words can set the tone for your newsletter. Use one at the beginning or the close of your season’s greetings.

• Make a hits list.

• Put all your “best ofs” in one place—from most-watched TV shows and top playlists to websites worth visiting and must-reads.

Well, that's not going to happen.
Obviously some people take the old Christmas letter thing a bit too seriously.

We used to get them from some friends of The Old Girl but as we never responded, after years had gone by they stopped sending them to us.

Richard of RBB puts one on his blog every December but as his blog ratings have seriously diminished (down to 3 readers and one of those is one of his alter-egos) I doubt that these readers give it more than a cursory glance. It'll no doubt fizzle out like Christmas cards have.

I imagine these cards are not sent out nowadays

I've written before on how we don't get Christmas cards anymore except from institutions and these are usually in e-form. Actually this year I've only received two of these so they're on the way out too.

Christmas letters are supposed to be about what one did in the current year. Maybe these originated from kids writing to santa begging gifts and maintaining that they had been good during the year.

Of course they wouldn't say they'd been bad although there is a certain segment of the population that would confess to being bad in the hope of receiving punishment:

 But that's another story.

I don't think I've been bad during the year, or certainly not enough to get a whipping. The Old Girl has been away though and, as she said I wasn't allowed to play with other women this wasn't going to happen anyway.

It's been a funny old year.
Last Christmas we spent in Aberdeen with The Old Girl's mother. We're really glad that we did this because she died 4 months later and we had such a good time with her over Christmas and New Year.

I came back to New Zealand for a job which has had its ups and downs

"Work huh yeah. What is it good for?

Absolutely nothing, oh hoh, oh Work huh yeah. What is it good for?

Absolutely nothing, say it again y'all Work, huh good God What is it good for?

Absolutely nothing, listen to me"

(With apologies to Edwin Starr )

I've been living alone and working from the Auckland apartment which is something I  didn't imagine I'd be doing a couple of years ago when we bought it. I thought it'd be OK for a couple of nights a week but not all the time. As it turns out I don't really mind it. Maybe this is due to the fact that I'd been living in that high rise in Toronto for a year so have gotten used to small spaces.

Getting back to the theme, Christmas (huh yeah what is it good for?)
It's still a good time of year with people winding down and looking forward to their holidays and (hopefully) positive changes in the new year.

I've got fond memories of Christmases past. It was a time of celebration and excitement and that wasn't always to do with getting presents. In our family and I guess a lot of New Zealand families in the 50's, 60's and even 70's we didn't get a lot of fancy presents. Nowadays it's all gone mad with kids especially, receiving too much crap. The 'crap' isn't cheap stuff either. No doubt the precious little people will be getting iPads, iPhones and Playstation 4s and a whole lot of other very expensive junk. And, you know what? I bet they don't appreciate it.

Grrrrr. It makes me mad

I've just been Christmas shopping down Queen Street. I didn't intend to as I just went for a walk but went in to Whitcoull's.
I managed to get a few gifts for the family so that annoying TV ad they have going at the moment has some truth to it. I must go about in a haze as I hadn't noticed the big SALE signs screaming out and the guy at the door announcing things on a microphone was just background noise to me.  It wasn't until my purchases were being processed that I realised they were 50% off!
Dumb this, specialing so heavily BEFORE Christmas but I was quite pleased.

Nowadays I don't expect much in the way of Christmas gifts coming my way. The Old Girl and I normally agree on something earlier and then get one or two small gifts for each other. We probably spend more time and money on gifts for extended family.

Over the last few years my nieces have been buying me tea! Somewhere in the past I must have said that I really like tea. Unfortunately they don't get the tea from the local supermarket as if it was Twinings Irish Breakfast I'd be happy and it'd save me buying it.
No, they buy expensive fancy tea from boutique shop.

This goes to the back of the cupboard and very rarely gets used.



Second Fiddle (50% of Richard's readership) now known as Bob The Tit or something is a bit of a grinch or scrooge when it comes to Christmas.
In his latest post he warns of Christmas work gatherings saying that he would never attend and wouldn't want to socialise with the people he has no liking for during the year.

I think he misses a couple of points.

• If you don't like the company you work for then what better way to assuage this than eating their free food and drinking their free plonk.
• If you don't like the people you work with what better opportunity is there to mess with their heads than in a party environment when they are fuzzy with alcohol.
• Did I mention the free drinks?

But then Bob The Second Tit is a bit of a Christian traditionalist. This is more of the gathering He'll be at:

I like this painting (Ukranian).
Mary looks slightly out of it as if she's been ingesting drugs or having had a bit too much of the Christmas punch.
The shepherds look like they're performing some sort of hip-hop song and dance routine.
Joseph is showing undue attention to the animal on the ground that seems to be giving him the eye.
Baby Jesus looks like he'd been wrapped up like a paper dart and hurled down from above by that angel lurking in the clouds.

Did Medieval artists take hallucinogens? I think so.



Merry Christmas readers reader.