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American Life: Season’s Greetings

Posted December 18, 2007

"The Christmas letter is a parvenu's marathon of boorish boasting, shameless name-dropping, wild exaggeration, social climbing, fabrication, falsification, and spin doctoring." — Christopher Corbett

by Christopher Corbett

Baltimore — (TFN): You really know that the season of counting your blessings has arrived when the first Christmas letter lands in your mailbox. These annual missives once were modest one-page, single-spaced, typed sheets (mimeographed).  They looked like church bulletins.  But now the wonders of the computer age allow each man and woman of goodwill to be a veritable Hallmark-at-Home — producing four-color, amply illustrated, brochures bearing not merely tidings of comfort and joy but proof that it is, indeed, a wonderful life.

Today’s Christmas letter falls somewhere between the formal Christmas card (“Seasons Greetings from the Smiths”) and the State Farm insurance agent’s mass-mailed benediction (includes pocket calendar).

A slight departure from the original spirit of the holiday, the Christmas letter is a parvenu’s marathon of boorish boasting, shameless name-dropping, wild exaggeration, social climbing, fabrication, falsification and spin doctoring.  The exclamation point, otherwise little used in English today, makes a special guest appearance at the holidays!!!

The traditional Christmas letter begins with a sentence that says something like “As we approach this holy season we pause to reflect on how truly blessed we are.”

(Translation: Brace yourself; we are about to recite our bounty.)

False modesty is a hallmark of the Christmas letter, along with piety and just a dash of smugness: “Our year has been one full of blessings.” We were blessed with a trip to Aspen.  Then we were blessed with a new Range Rover, then we were blessed with a month on Nantucket, and then…

Shameless boasting about one’s offspring is de rigueur.  The children are all future Olympians, Rhodes scholars, National Merit finalists, the best and the brightest.  “Our Little Guy is the first five-year-old All State Tae Kwon Do champion ever!!!” (Possibly hyperactive, we thought we’d try this instead of Ritalin.)

One of the truisms of deconstructing the letter is that the better you know the sender, the more preposterous it is.  A Christmas letter from someone you know well can be a howler.  But as a general rule, only distant acquaintances “gift” you with a Christmas letter.   Writers of Christmas letters like to use “gift” as a verb, too.  “We were gifted with a trip to Eleuthera last March during Spring Break when Chip was inducted into the Million Dollar Round Table of Sales!!!!!!!”

As you can see, Christmas letters can be tricky, and it takes a practiced eye to deconstruct the hidden meanings: “Big Chip has always been a super risk taker and this year was no exception.”  (Big Chip has lost another job.)

“I continue to find such special satisfaction in being a Super Soccer Mom, home with four frisky youngster, making our nest as warm, peaceful and loving as possible.”  (Help me, help me.)

Bad news, disasters and death are handled in a lighthearted fashion:

“We were glad to get rid of that old money pit on Oak Street and move into something a little more contemporary.”  (One of the conditions of the foreclosure was downsizing to a suburban rancher.)

“We had a super time up in the Tonsil Lakes with the whole gang in July!!!”  (It was free.)

“Even though he’s been in a coma for a year, Dad still has the old twinkle in his eye.”  (Dad is a vegetable.)

“Chip’s Mom is enjoying her new adult care condominium and loves her special afternoons of sunshine and fresh air.”  (Left unattended at the nursing home for long periods outside in her wheelchair.)

“It’s hard to believe that it’s been over a year since I’ve written or talked to many of you.”  (We have no relationship.)

“Please know that despite this, ‘we have you in our hearts’ (Phil. 1:7).”  (You mean nothing to us but we may need a recommendation so that little Chip can weasel his way into Dartmouth, so we’ll keep up the pretense.)

Another rule of thumb:  The more insincere the letter, the more often the Bible is quoted.  The most disingenuous always have a special relationship with Jesus: “Christ continues to be at the center of our busy, happy lives.” Blah, blah, blah…  (If you knew Jesus you could be a member of the Million Dollar Round Table of Sales, too!!!  Only the winners go to dinner — with Jesus!!!)

Christmas letters are nearly always late (so there is still time to do one this year).  That’s because Super Soccer Mom, author, editor and compositor, is too busy with those frisky youngsters to get the dispatch down to Kinko’s.  If you get the Christmas letter after the Feast of the Epiphany, Super Soccer Mom may have been back in rehab.

Finally, the best letters include that hastily scrawled and insincere personal note at the end.  “Gosh we were soooooooo glad to hear that Hurricane Raoul spared your beach house!!!!”  (The hell we were.)

“Well, that about sums it up, until next year!!! We pray a safe and happy 2008 for you all!!!!”  (Yeah, right.)

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Christopher Corbett is the author of Orphans Preferred: The Twisted Truth and Lasting Legend of the Pony Express. He is a regular contributor to TFN.


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