| Love 'em or hate 'em, family Christmas letters have | | | | day by day. Be creative. Use bullet points, create a |
| become an annual ritual. They arrive each year in | | | | puzzle, or turn it into a multiple-choice quiz. You can find |
| holiday cards from friends and family, but rather than | | | | ideas at Or go digital! If printed paper is too 20th |
| providing a fun update on the writers' lives, they often | | | | century for you or you're worried about your carbon |
| become fodder for jokes about poor writing and | | | | footprint, post your Christmas letter online on MySpace, |
| excessive bragging. Here's how to create letters that | | | | your blog or any other personal web site. |
| will leave your readers grinning rather than groaning. | | | | 5. Make it colorful. |
| 1. Be yourself. | | | | Holiday letters are easier and more fun to read when |
| This is the cardinal rule of holiday letter writing. Just be | | | | you spice them up with family photos, Christmas clip |
| yourself. When friends and family read your letter, they | | | | art, or other images (such as scanned children's |
| should be able to tell that you wrote it. It shouldn't read | | | | artwork). You can buy Christmas letter templates or |
| like something penned by your seventh grade English | | | | stationery online or at your local stores. You can also |
| teacher. | | | | spice up the envelopes you'll use to send your letters |
| 2. Don't brag. | | | | by creating personalized stamps or sending your |
| If something good happened to you and your family, | | | | letters to North Pole, AK and getting a North Pole |
| announce it, but keep it low-key. Readers don't enjoy | | | | postmark. |
| gloating. Remember when you played sports in school | | | | 6. Read it out loud. |
| and had to shake hands with the losing team after | | | | Have you succeeded in writing an informative, |
| winning a great victory? Remember how to be a good | | | | entertaining holiday letter? Read it out loud, or have |
| sport and don't brag or exaggerate. | | | | someone else read it to you. If it doesn't sound right, try |
| 3. Use adjectives and adverbs sparingly. | | | | again. |
| If you're tempted to add words like "great" and | | | | 7. Add a personal note. |
| "exciting" and "wonderful" in every sentence, take a | | | | Add one or two handwritten lines at the bottom of |
| break and see rule #1 above. | | | | each letter to add a personal touch and leave your |
| 4. Be creative. | | | | readers feeling good. |
| Your Christmas letter doesn't have to be a long | | | | Happy holidays! |
| narrative of everything that happened to your family | | | | |