The Art of Christmas Letter Writing
Love 'em or hate 'em, family Christmas letters have become a part of our culture. Here are some tips on how to write Christmas letters your readers will enjoy, as well as some links for Christmas letter paper you can order online and Christmas letter templates you can download and use immediately.
8 Tips for Writing Better Family Christmas Letters
Simple reminders to keep your letters fun for everyone!
1. Be yourself.This is the cardinal rule of holiday letter writing. Write like you speak. Your letter should sound like you wrote it, not like it was penned by your seventh grade English teacher.
2. Don't brag.
If something good happened to you and your family, announce it, but keep it low-key. Readers don't enjoy gloating. Remember when you played sports in school and had to shake hands with the losing team after winning a great victory? Keep that image in mind while announcing your latest victories.
3. Use adjectives and adverbs sparingly.
If you're tempted to add words like "great" and "exciting" and "wonderful" in every sentence, take a break and see rule #1 above.
4. Be creative.
Your Christmas letter doesn't have to be a long narrative of everything that happened to your family this year. Be creative. Use bullet points, create a puzzle, or turn it into a multiple-choice quiz. You'll find more creative Christmas letter ideas at Christmas Letter Tips.com.
5. Make it colorful.
Holiday letters are easier and more fun to read when you spice them up with family photos, Christmas clip art, or other images (such as scanned children's artwork). You can also buy Christmas stationery or Christmas letter templates (such as the one pictured here) to make your letter more fun.
6. Have fun!
Remember that the goal of your annual Christmas letter should be to entertain and inform your readers. If you don't have fun creating it, your recipients probably won't enjoy reading it.
7. Read it out loud.
Have you succeeded in writing an informative, entertaining holiday letter? Read it out loud, or have someone else read it to you. If it doesn't sound right, try again.
8. Add a personal note.
Add one or two handwritten lines at the bottom of each letter to add a personal touch and leave your readers feeling good.
An All-in-One Christmas Card and Letter
With today's technology, who needs a separate piece of paper for your Christmas letter? Forget about stuffing your letter inside a card. This clever design from PhotoWorks is a card AND a letter in one. The front of this 5 x 7 card offers room for a large photo and the inside offers space for a full-page letter. And you can create it all online. Simply upload a photo and type in your text. Then preview your design before ordering. You're done! PhotoWorks also offers other designs that allow you to combine your Christmas letter and card in one. Visit PhotoWorks to see more. Christmas Letter Templates and Stationery
Make your Christmas letters look great with templates
Once you've written your letter, you'll want to create a design or buy a template or preprinted stationery that will add color and fun to your words.You can get printable Christmas stationery with matching envelopes online at places such as Blue Mountain Greetings.
Blue Mountain Greetings offers a 30-day free trial membership, which will give you access to the printable Christmas letter templates and envelopes, as well as printable and electronic holiday cards and hundreds of other printable projects. To see their Christmas selection, visit the homepage, click Create and Print, select Holidays on the next page, click Christmas and then select Stationery.
You can buy downloadable Christmas letterhead in kits such as the one pictured here (just click on the image), or get printable Christmas letter templates at Christmas Letter Tips.com.
You can also buy preprinted Christmas stationery at local stationery stores, discount stores and greeting card shops, or shop online for thousands of great designs. For example, see below for some of the letterhead you can purchase from Zazzle.
Christmas Letter Paper
Stationery for your holiday letter
Here are just a few of the designs you'll find there. Click on a picture to see a larger image and to explore the wide range of paper they offer.
Spice Up Your Envelopes with Christmas stamps
Make your Christmas letters look good on the outside, too
On Zazzle, you can also order a variety of Christmas stamps created by artists. Here are just a few of the holiday stamps you'll find there:

Happy Holidays Snowmen Stamps

Merry Christmas Stamp 26

Season's Greetings Snowman

Merry Christmas

Set the Christmas Mood!
Every day in December, Amazon will be offering free Christmas music downloads
Add a Christmas Postmark
Get a North Pole or other fun postmark for your family Christmas letters
You can also add a little fun to your envelopes by getting a postmark from the North Pole. No kidding! All is takes is a little extra time. The North Pole, Alaska post office will stamp all of your envelopes with their special holiday cancellation for no additional charge (you still need to put regular postage on your envelopes). All you have to do is adress and stamp your envelopes as you normally would. Then stick them all in a larger envelope and send them to:North Pole Christmas Cancellation
c/o Postmaster
5400 Mail Trail
Fairbanks, AK 99709-9999
The North Pole elves (ok, postal employees) will then make sure your letters get sent to the appropriate addresses, just as if you'd dropped them at your local post office. But you can tell your friends they came from the North Pole!
To ensure delivery in time for Christmas, be sure to get your letters to the North Pole by December 15 at the very latest. Christmas is a very busy time at the North Pole.
If you'd prefer a postmark from another Christmas-themed city, such as a Santa postmark from Santa Claus, Indiana, here are some other cities you can use. Follow the instructions above to send your letter and get your Christmas postmark.
Nazareth, PA 18064
Santa, ID 83866
Santa Claus, IN 47579
Noel, MO 64854
Creating Digital Christmas Letters
Put Your Family Christmas Letter Online
There are several options for putting your family Christmas letters online, including building your own web site, but if you're not quite ready to make the leap to your own domain and hosting account, here are two simple options:
- create it on a digital scrapbook site
- add your Christmas letter to a blog
Digital Scrapbooking
New digital scrapbook sites such as Smilebox make it easy to create digital Christmas letters, ecards, slideshows, scrapbooks, photobooks, and postcards online.
Smilebox is free if you simply want to make a card, letter or scrapbook to send via email or place on your blog, or you can pay a small fee ($1.99 per creation, $4.99 a month or $34.99 a year) for the option to make ad-free designs, get premium templates, and print your creations. Better yet, check out the 14-day free trial and get all the premium features at no cost.
The service allows you to add text, photos, videos and music to your creations, so you'll have a truly digital Christmas letter. Registration is free, so check it out.
Blogging
One easy, fast and cheap way to get your Christmas letter online is to put it on a blog. If you don't have a blog, it's easy and free to get one. Just sign up at a free blogging site such as Blogger, choose a name for your blog and pick a template.
Creative Christmas Letters Book
For more ideas, check out this book
Ideas for Writing Creative Christmas Letters: That People Are Actually Eager to Read!
Amazon Price: (as of 12/05/2009)![]()
This book has some great suggestions for creative Christmas letters and gives real examples from the author's family letters. Ideas include Christmas letters disguised as classified ads, trivia games, election results, family statistics and more. If you're looking for some unique ideas, this book will get you thinking.
More Books on Letter Writing
How NOT to Write a Christmas Letter
A parody of the traditonal family letter
Christmas Letter Poll
Love 'em or hate 'em?
Christmas Shirts on CafePress
Get inspired! Wear a Christmas tee to get in the spirit.
Why We Celebrate
More Christmas Pages
More about sending Christmas cards and letters.-
Green Your Holidays with a Christmas Letter Template
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If you're looking for ways to have a greener Christmas, consider using a downloadable Christmas letter template to help you with your holiday letter writing. Templates are environmentally friendly for a variety of reasons, including the fact that...
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Free Christmas Downloads
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They say the best things in life are free, and that's certainly true during the holidays when most people are spending extra money on gifts. These free Christmas downloads may not save you any money, but they can add some holiday spirit at no cos...
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How to Get a Santa Postmark from Santa Claus, Indiana
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If you're looking for a way to make your holiday mail a little cheerier this year, think about getting a Santa postmark from Santa Claus, Indiana. The postmark itself is free, and you can send all your mail - from Christmas cards and letters to S...
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Unusual Christmas Cards
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Each year, Americans send millions of cards during the holiday season, and most of them are traditional folded greetings or flat photo cards with faces of smiling families. Want to break out of the mold this year? Here are some unusual Christmas card...
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100% Recycled Christmas Paper for Your Holiday Letters
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Finding recycled Christmas paper at your local stationery or office supply store can be challenging. They don't always carry recycled stationery, or, if they do, they might not have a good selection of designs, or the paper may only have a small...
Love 'em or hate 'em?
Give us your feedback on Christmas letters and this lens!
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Reply
- susannaduffy susannaduffy Nov 18, 2009 @ 4:34 pm
- Blessed, and featured, by a Christmas Angel (squidoo.com/angel-christmas)
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- KarateKatGraphics KarateKatGraphics Nov 8, 2009 @ 8:24 am
- I love it when the writer incorporates humor into a Christmas letter. One friend does this so well, year after year. 5* and a fave, plus I'm lensrolling this to squidoo.com/lovestamps
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- stargazer00 stargazer00 Oct 25, 2009 @ 5:42 pm
- Very good tips about family Christmas letters. I don't like the bragging ones either but I guess people want to tell you about their victories and not their failures.
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- julcal julcal Dec 31, 2008 @ 12:29 pm
- These are great ideas! I either love them or hate them. I hate the bragging ones. *****
~Julie
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- prosperity66 prosperity66 Dec 17, 2008 @ 10:28 am
- Great Christmas lens. Was looking for info on the subjec!
Thanks for sharing.
Rated 5 stars!
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- Evelyn_Saenz Evelyn_Saenz Dec 16, 2008 @ 9:38 pm
- I guess I missed the North Pole Christmas Cancellation deadline for this but now that I know about it I will be sure to send them early next year.
What a wonderful lens. Thank you for sharing.
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- RedRoseBoutique RedRoseBoutique Dec 15, 2008 @ 1:24 pm
- I have a neice that sends out a Christmas Letter, once upon a time, but she has 6 children now, and I just don't think she has the time. Great Lens. I wish everyone a great holiday season.
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- jennrose jennrose Dec 13, 2008 @ 5:59 pm
- Great tips! I love good Christmas lenses. 5*
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- Winter52 Winter52 Dec 9, 2008 @ 4:56 pm
- I like the idea and I have never received one! Maybe I should get the ball rolling.
:)
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- mdvaldosta mdvaldosta Dec 7, 2008 @ 7:48 am
- Tis the season! Great lens!
- Load More
Read More About Christmas Letter Writing
More sites with advice on writing Christmas letters
- How To Write Christmas Letters People Will Actually Enjoy Reading - How To Do Things.com
- Computers have made it easy for anyone to create an annual Christmas letter, but do your readers think of ho, ho, ho or oh, no, no when they get your mail? Follow these tips to make sure your letters are fun to read and write.
- How to Write a Christmas Letter - Great Christmas Letters.com
- Get tips on how to write a Christmas letter at Great Christmas Letters.com.
- How to Write a Christmas Letter - Parenting Squad
- Advice on writing Christmas letters
- Ideas for Creative Christmas Letters
- Stumped about what to put in your annual Christmas letter? Then think outside the box. Maybe it's time for an extreme makeover.
(Christmas is December 25, 2009)
NPR Talks About Christmas Letters
'Tis the Season!

This lens belongs to the
'Tis the Season for Christmas Lenses
group, where you'll find more interesting pages
with holiday tips, ideas and trivia.
by lisadh
I started Christmas Letter Tips.com three years ago because I wanted to help people write letters that others enjoyed. Hope you find this info useful!...
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