Is Your Christmas Newsletter Boring?

Most of the Christmas cards our family receives are just that; Christmas cards with the name of the sender signed on the inside just below a printed greeting. A few cheery souls add a couple of sentences wishing us a merry Christmas or a happy holiday season, and a few more even pen a short personal note asking how we have been and expressing hopes to visit soon. Not a really satisfactory contact, in most cases, especially if that is the one and only contact you have received from that person since Christmas the year before.

But, impersonal as a card with a hastily scrawled signature may be, it is often preferable to the really awful Christmas newsletters some people send out year after year. You know the kind I mean. The ones written in tiny 9-point type so that they can get a whole year of family activities down on one page in order to save postage; the kind that try to list, in detail, every ball game the 6 kids participated in, every movie the family viewed, and every teeny tiny ache and pain that was suffered by any and all during the past 365 days. If you are like me, you stick the letter away, thinking you will get around to reading it when you have a magnifying glass handy, and a lot, lot more time to spare. But, if you are really like me, I doubt very much that you will ever bother digging that letter out again.

Don't get me wrong. Of course Grandma and Grandpa are interested in the fact that your 5 year old learned to ride his bike, or that their oldest granddaughter just got her driver's license. Why wouldn't they be? They are personally involved in the lives of those kids. What I am talking about are people who think everyone on their Christmas card list, from their paper boy to their hairdresser will also be interested in hearing about these accomplishments, too. Believe me, they are not.

If you don't want your Christmas newsletter to end up, unopened, in a box in the attic, try a few of the following tricks to make it worth the receiver's time to read it.

1. Don't Send The Identical Newsletter To Everyone On Your List.

If you have a few things you want to share with everyone on your list, fine, but start each letter with a personal paragraph or two written directly to each person. Most Christmas newsletters begin something like this:

"Hi Everyone. Just a few lines to wish you Merry Christmas and let you know everything we've been up to during the last year.........." (followed by a minute by minute account),

Instead, why not try starting your letter with something like:

"Hi, Matt and Sheila. How are you doing? Last time we talked, you said Matt's mother wasn't doing too well. Is she okay now?"

This draws your readers into your newsletter and lets them know that you are actually thinking of them during the busy holiday season. Add a few more sentences-maybe even a couple of paragraphs about them before you move on to other things. Ask Matt if he is still riding his motorcycle to work to save money, and how many dozens of Christmas cookies Sheila has baked so far.

2. Sum Up The Main Events Of Your Own Year Quickly

After talking about them for a while, you are ready to say something about your own family, but try to make it something that you know would interest them. (This can be time consuming, I know, but giving, even of time, is what Christmas is all about.) Say something like:

"I guess our biggest news is that we are finally going to get that boy we always said we wanted. Myrna is expecting in May, and we've been told we'd better pick out a boy's name. Matt, we wondered if you would mind if we borrowed your name, Matthew, for our baby's middle name? Big sisters, Nettie and Paula are just as excited as we are."

Add a couple more pieces of news here, but don't go overboard with details. People are busy this time of year and, as important as your own news is to you, theirs is even more important to them. Especially avoid including news about the relatives of relatives-you know the kind I mean. "And Mary's mother's sister-in-law and her great-uncle are all coming for a visit next month." If you throw in too many of those, your reader is going to shake his or her head and say, "Who Cares?"

3. Add Pictures Or Graphics To Make Your Newsletter Special

A picture of the family is always good to show how much they have grown and changed during the past year is excellent. Several pictures of the family engaged in various forms of activity would also be nice. You could add a caption explaining what they are doing if it isn't obvious from viewing the picture. If you can't manage family snapshots, most computer programs come with some kind of graphics so you can easily position a Christmas picture across the bottom of the letter. I, personally, like one of Christmas candles at the top right side of each page. If you have an appropriate poem for the season, that would probably fit in well, too.

Try the suggestions above and see if you don't start getting positive feedback instead of deafening silence from your newsletters. I think it may surprise you.