The Art of Christmas Letter Writing
8 Tips for Writing Better Family Christmas Letters
Simple reminders to keep your letters fun for everyone!
- 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. - 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. - 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. - 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 ideas and examples at Christmas Letter Tips.com. - 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). - 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. - 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. - 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.
Set the Christmas Mood!
Every day in December, Amazon will be offering free Christmas music downloads.
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 Holiday Classics or 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 also buy preprinted Christmas stationery at local stationery stores, discount stores and greeting card shops. Happy shopping!
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
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, here are some others 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.
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.
You can also build a timeline of your year that has text, photos, videos and more at OurStory.com.
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.
You won't find Christmas-themed blog templates (at least, I haven't seen one yet), but you can choose from a variety of styles and colors for your blog. Then all you have to do is write your letter. You don't need to know any HTML, and you can even include photos with no technical skill needed at all.
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: $11.66 (as of 07/09/2009)
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
Great Personal Letters for Busy People: 501 Ready-to-Use Letters for Every Occasion
Amazon Price: $16.46 (as of 07/09/2009)
1001 Letters For All Occasions: The Best Models for Every Business and Personal Need
Amazon Price: $12.20 (as of 07/09/2009)
Webster's New World Letter Writing Handbook
Amazon Price: $12.23 (as of 07/09/2009)
For the Love of Letters: A 21st-Century Guide to the Art of Letter Writing
Amazon Price: $16.96 (as of 07/09/2009)
How to Say It: Choice Words, Phrases, Sentences, and Paragraphs for Every Situation, Revised Edition
Amazon Price: (as of 07/09/2009)
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.
NPR Talks About Christmas Letters
Why We Celebrate
'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.
More Christmas Pages from 'Tis the Season Headquarters
-
Spode Christmas Tree China
-
Spode is well-known for fine china, and their Christmas tree dinnerware is a favorite every holiday season. This year, the company marks the 70th anniversary of the popular Christmas china with a Christmas design featuring roses and mistletoe. If you...
-
Where to Buy Toys with Free Shipping
-
Free shipping is one of the best things about shopping online, and it can save you both time and money. But while almost everyone is familiar with industry leader Toys R Us, not everyone may be familiar with other online toy stores that offer alterna...
-
Robotic Toys for Kids
-
Robot toys are hot, thanks to the success of movies such as Disney's Wall-e and to innovative products such as Wow-Wee Robosapien and others. Here are some of the top RC robots and related products.
-
Christmas Candy Canes
-
It wouldn't be Christmas without candy canes, those ubiquitous red-and-white striped, hooked sticks of peppermint candy. Find out when and why they were invented, find books and DVDs about their legend, and find some tasty candy cane recipes.
-
20 Unique and Alternative Gift Ideas
-
If you've been looking for a unique gift for a special someone and are frustrated because you can't find anything at your local super mall, here are some ideas to get you going. From fair trade to far out fun, these gifts are sure to be tops on your...
Love 'em or hate 'em?
Give us your feedback on Christmas letters and this lens!
julcal wrote...
These are great ideas! I either love them or hate them. I hate the bragging ones. *****
~Julie
Posted December 31, 2008
prosperity66 wrote...
Great Christmas lens. Was looking for info on the subjec!
Thanks for sharing.
Rated 5 stars!
Posted December 17, 2008
Evelyn_Saenz wrote...
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.
Posted December 16, 2008
RedRoseBoutique wrote...
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.
Posted December 15, 2008
Winter52 wrote...
I like the idea and I have never received one! Maybe I should get the ball rolling.
:)
Posted December 09, 2008
Treasures-By-Brenda wrote...
I do enjoy the Christmas letters we receive although there are one or two that go a bit farther than they need to...so I try and avoid going into too much detail and I try not to boast although that is hard when you are trying to sum up what you've done in a year and you do not want to talk about what you have not done!
My favorite tip on this page is, "Read it out loud." I tell my teenage boys to do that for every assignment. You can find so many errors that way.
You have created a nice page with lots of ideas...I guess I had better quit Squidooing and get our newsletter written!
Brenda
Posted December 04, 2008
kathyrclark wrote...
Very Nice Lens. As for Christmas Newsletters, I love them. It is great for getting caught up with all the family and friends news. Don't you hate getting a Card that says nothing but a signature. They need to save their stamp. Kathy
Posted November 25, 2008
Spook wrote...
I never you that about the North Pole print. Would have loved that when my kids were small. Actually sounds like a great idea for adults to. Lovely lens.
Posted November 22, 2008
(Christmas is December 25, 2009)
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.
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!...
(more)
