monday's mulling: the christmas letter

The last couple of days I had a doozy of a cold, it felt like my head would explode, I was in Christmas decorating mode, but had to put that on hold, along with blog posts, truth be told.

Well, hello December! As I cross off tasks on my Christmas to-do list, there's always more to add. Will it ever get shorter? (Deep breath), yes it will. One of my tasks is to write the annual Christmas letter. 

I subscribe to a poem-a-day newsletter and this one recently showed up. One of the saddest casualties of the email age is the disappearance of the Christmas letter. I remember back in the day Mom and Dad reading us the two-page, single-spaced, xeroxed Christmas letter, in which we learned about various peoples’ lives for the past year. Pete got a promotion. Little Annie made the Dean’s list. John and Debbie are enjoying their retirement in Naples.

The Christmas Letter

By John Norris

Wherever you are when you receive this letter

I write to say we are still ourselves

In the same place

And hope you are the same.

The dead have died as you know

And will never get better,

And the children are boys and girls

Of several ages and names.

So in closing I send you our love

And hope to hear from you soon.

There is never a time

Like the present. It lasts forever

Wherever you are. As ever I remain.

I have written a Christmas letter for many, many years, ever since 1984, the year my first child was born. 41 years...wow. It’s an alphabetical compilation of the past year where each letter gets filled with someone or some event or place. I keep it to one page, front and back, and sometimes some of the letters get a little silly. Some letters like Q, X, and Z get a little goofy but hey, life gets a little goofy at times. Friends look forward to this year-on-a-page letter and I do have fun writing it.

This is the source for writing the annual Christmas letter, my Day Planner, which has turned into a diary. I write something about every day in it. Sometimes it's a word or a one liner, other times I fill the pages. It's enjoyable to go back to January 1 and read through each month, taking a stroll down memory lane. And that reminds me to put a Day Planner 2026 on my Christmas list. Gotta keep the tradition going.