We have a family member who sends out a letter every year that is generally questionable.

One year, he compared his grown daughter's divorce that year to the amputation of a gangrenous limb.

Would that I were kidding.

I like the holiday letters too because they help me keep up on what's going on in their lives. I do a holiday letter but it only goes to the people who I know care about what my kids are doing... like aunts and uncles, my mom's cousins, my cousins, and my best friends from grade school. I send out about 40 cards and the holiday letter goes into maybe half of those.

I also don't like when everything is pre-printed. There are a few people who aren't on Facebook and who don't write anything extra who I would really like to hear more from. The glitter/confetti ones are definitely annoying.

When it comes to sending out weird/inappropriate Christmas cards, my stepmom takes the cake.

Last year, she sent this card:

http://h50.us/~churchg2/images/53215c.jpg

... which contained a printed poem in it about "giving a little Jesus" this Christmas. I'm sure you could probably find the poem online if you Googled it. I'm not very religious, and I understand that she is... but is it me? Is this not weird? What I loved most is that she wrote in my name above the poem, and then signed underneath it "Love Dad and Stepmom" (using her actual name, which I won't post here). Nothing else. I'd hate to see what they did for people who aren't their children..

Worse than receiving updates about the twenty-something kids... receiving one of those picture cards with the twenty-something kids on it. I don't see or talk to my dad and stepmom much, and yet this year, they sent a card with a picture of the two of them and me and my brother together.. from my brother's basic training graduation. We're both in our mid-to-late twenties, and besides that, I'm sending out my own Christmas cards this year.

This is something that you do when your kids are 4 and 6.. Not 24 and 26...

THANK YOU!! An update is not the same as a resume. "Susie is still enjoying her dance involvement" is an update. "Susie placed fourth in the statewide snowflake competition and won the trophy for Best Pirouette and first runner-up in Arabesque technique" is NOT an update, it's bragging. Also, no one cares.

Ditto the contrast between "Billy is looking forward to enrolling at Duke next fall" and "Billy had such a tough time deciding between Duke, Dartmouth, Georgetown, and a full scholarship at Vanderbilt that blah blah blah..." In brief, we're so blessed, and you're not.
________
Avandia attorney

That's part of the reasons I hate those letters, they're so show-offy and competitive.

Also, who cares if little Jimmy got braces or had a difficult time adjusting to middle school? And btw, I can see the braces in the picture, so really, leave the poor kid to his braces hell.

Have any of you read the Holiday Newsletter from David Sedaris' Holidays on Ice?

He also reads it in an episode of This American Life. It's episode #87, "A Very Special Sedaris Christmas."

It's the second story AFTER Ira's intro. Starts at roughly 14:50.