I’m a writer and a writing teacher, and I understand writing wisdom. I also understand if you aren’t comfortable writing, writing a Christmas letter will seem monumental. But hang with me. There is a way! Even if you feel ill-prepared, here’s how you can write a Christmas letter your people will love to read.
Christmas cards and their accompanying letters have morphed in my lifetime from typed and photocopied ones to nearly professionally designed ones (think Canva) mailed by a service. Even the family photos are now glossy magazine-quality I could only dream of decades ago.
In the age of Instagram-perfect, though, it’s no wonder many of us are almost afraid to send a *gasp* regular card with a letter. It’s expensive– spending time and money (stamps). With social media is there even the need to send update letters?
Yes! Sending a snail mail Christmas card and a lovely (short) letter says “I care” during this time of year like nothing else. It’s also a wonderful way to reflect on your year and save the memories for years ahead. (I’m preaching to myself here, readers, because I have not sent Christmas cards with letters for too long. I’m going to take my own advice.)
What makes a good Christmas letter?
A good Christmas letter is engaging and heartfelt. The best ones are not simply a list of the year’s highlights. They are letters from real people with real lives, real struggles, and real joys. And because I’m a Christian, I believe the best Christmas letters and cards also share the reason we celebrate this holy-day . . . the birth of Jesus Christ!
Use your voice.
Be yourself. Use your regular you-voice. Don’t try to imitate others or put on fancy-schmancy language or sentence structure. Write like you are talking with a dear friend over a cup of tea. Then take out all the “ums” and “y’knows.” (Do not use AI for your Christmas letter.)
Focus on the moments & tell a story
Instead of a grand saga with all the details through the year, focus on a few special moments that capture your year. Imagine someone says, “Let me tell you the story about our disastrous summer camping trip.” We lean in and listen because this might be a good story. But if the storyteller gives a laundry list of every single detail? The planning, the drive, the food they packed, the itinerary, the music they listened to on the way? Then we get antsy. Very antsy. We don’t need every single detail. Just the good stuff.
By good stuff, I don’t mean the braggy highlights. I mean the meaty, juicy details. We want to hear that the sky was black by 5:00 pm, and the ground was so wet your hiking boots got stuck every step between the car and the tent.
Instead of broad strokes, good letters share the time passed using specific moments or stories. If you are an empty-nester with grands, for example, then perhaps you tell the story of a hilarious FaceTime visit you had with them. You can show their sweet and rambunctious personalities by telling us what they told you. Use dialogue. Use description.
One year I wrote about our family trip to find the perfect Christmas tree. I described our kids, shared their fun dialogue as grade-schoolers, and reflected on how there really was not a “perfect” tree, especially after my husband teased me that they put all the trees in the lot through a Christmas tree shaper!
Yikes. This might seem like a tall order. If you don’t write often, you might think you can’t do this.
Yes, you can. Here’s how.
How to Write a Christmas Letter Your People Will Love
Pray.
This is the first thing I do when I begin any writing project or task. Ask the Lord to guide your words that they would be pleasing to Him – and to your readers. I often use this prayer:
“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.”
Psalm 19:14
Make a list.
Reflect on the past year and what beautiful events or people or memories fill your mind. They don’t have to be big things. Braindump a list of everything that comes to mind. Anything and everything you might want to include in your letter.
Now, think about your audience. Who will read your letter? Is this for family only? Family and dear friends? Will you send it to your work colleagues and acquaintances? Decide who your audience is and tailor your letter for them.
Finally, consider the goal of your letter. What do you want the recipient to feel? To know? To remember? Is it a connection? Sharing your joys and a few sorrows?
If your goal is to impress your high school friends with how amazing your family has turned out, please return to #1. One recipient describes a bad Christmas letter: “We got a letter from a niece who bragged about her $450,000 starter home she got for a stunning $390,000. What a blow for my kids who were struggling to get a $90,000 townhouse or just to pay the rent.” Nope.
Edit your list one more time with your goal in mind.
Freewrite.
If you are afraid of the blank page (you aren’t alone!), then do what lots of writers do – a timed freewrite. I like to do this before I make any big decisions about the structure or direction of my letter.
So set your timer for 15 or 20 minutes and then write everything that comes into your mind that you would want to share in the letter. Don’t bother with punctuation or spelling. Just write furiously. Nonstop. Stream of consciousness kind of writing where it doesn’t necessarily make sense.
You aren’t writing your first draft here. Just throwing the spaghetti against the wall to see what will stick. You can handwrite or keyboard it. Whatever works for you.
Now go and do this.
Really.
Right now.
Done? Now you have no blank page. Congratulations–you have something to work with.
Consider a Theme.
Now that your brain is warmed up and you have a list of events/moments/stories you might include and a page full of initial thoughts, think about a theme or an overall message that marked your year.
Is there a theme that you discover as you work through these steps and look through what you’ve written so far?
Here are some theme ideas: Change. Courage. Laughter. Little critters. Old things. Discoveries. Beauty. Identity. Simplicity.
One year my theme was “bittersweet” as I shared some sadness and joy of the year. Personally, I prefer my Christmas letters to be joyful ones, so even when you’ve had a challenging year, perhaps you can find a way to create a positive message in the midst of sharing the sadness.
Write.
Let it flow! Give yourself permission to write a messy first draft. You may be surprised that your best ideas will come at this stage, things you didn’t even think about before. Writing down your thoughts can untangle some beautiful threads.
Edit it.
Good writing is good editing. All the time. So go back and play with your words. Delete words that don’t sound right. Add another paragraph here or there.
Some helpful steps for editing:
- Set it aside for a couple days, and read it again.
- Read it aloud. Read it to someone else or listen to someone else reading it to you. If you don’t have someone around when you’re ready for this step, you can copy and paste your letter into a Word document and use the text-to-speech feature. You’ll hear clunky sentences this way!
- See what it looks like on the page. Do you have overwhelmingly long paragraphs? Consider breaking them up into smaller, skimmable paragraphs with subheadings. Take a look at a favorite blogger (me!?) to see how important it is to have white space.
Finalize your layout.
Finally, choose how you’ll layout and print your letter.
A long, long time ago, I used Microsoft Publisher to format my letters. One year, I printed them on green paper and folded them in quarters. My daughter and I drew simple trees as swishes in permanent marker on the front of each card. We topped each tree with a gold star and I wrote “Merry Christmas” below.
This took a lot of time and manual labor. While it didn’t go unnoticed, I don’t always have the time or motivation to commit to such a task. You either? Thankfully, now we have more tools at our disposal.
For a cost effective route, you can lay out your letter with some personal photos in Canva and print them from home. If you want to invest in something more, you can pair your heartfelt words with a card from Walgreens, Shutterfly, or Minted. Or print it straight from Google Docs, Pages, or Word on regular printer paper, fold it, and slide it into a red envelope. Friends and family will love reading your words, no need to be fancy.
Once you have your final draft written and laid out just the way you want it, don’t forget to read it one more time before you hit print! Check for all those typos and misspelled words.
And that’s it! So what do you think? Will you send a Christmas letter this year? I may just add “Write a Christmas letter” to my list of Advent traditions.
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