I Poured Out My Heart and Soul.
Usually when Thanksgiving is over, I start writing my annual Christmas letter. I started when the children were young. I had too many leftover photo prints from their latest visit to Picture People, so I decided to shove a few into Christmas letters.
At first, I bought cards, too. I wrote letters and folded them carefully to fit inside. I agonized over which cards went where, and who got Jesus stickers on their envelopes, and who got Santa stickers.
One summer, one of my cousins told me that she looked forward to my Christmas letter every year. “I read every word,” she said.
And I thought, wow – who knew? Someone actually appreciated what I was writing, so I kept writing – and forgot about the cards.
I wrote about my kids, and life with them. I talked about our vacations and our challenges with ADHD and vision processing. I talked about God and sobriety and how much I appreciate the little things in life – and life itself. I poured out my heart and soul, and then scattered photos among the words and wrapped the entire creation in a holiday-themed banner. I always tried to keep it to one page, but I don’t remember if I did.
As my kids grew, it became harder to talk about what we were doing. I started working and the kids started closing themselves in their rooms, as teenagers often do. Our vacations became the highlights of the letter, because that’s when I spent the most time with my kids. My letters started to look more like “typical” Christmas letters than unique ones. And I felt bad about that.
I started a blog along the way, and wrote about my life several times every week. This went on for years. I mentioned my blog in my Christmas letter, hoping those who cared would want to read more. Later I realized: my blog is really just for me.
Then politics upended everything. Friends and family disagreed – vehemently and about everything – for the first time in my life. I’d always believed everyone in my family thought exactly like me. But I learned with a jolt that many of the people I loved most in the world didn’t think like me. And while that was hard to realize, it was also hard not to take it personally.
Friends and family members unfriended me on Facebook because our views didn’t align. People I admired all my life became … just people. My heroes became human. Some of the people I loved most in the world generalized my personal views using hateful, horrible language. And while many of my favorite people remained quiet, I recognized for the first time in my life that I might not be as deeply loved as I once believed.
And then: COVID. Politics and COVID nearly tore apart the world.
So I wrote one last Christmas letter – in July 2020. I wrote about my family and my feelings and tried to offer joy and solace during a miserable time. But for the first time ever, I reeled in my heart and soul. I was desperately afraid that I would hurt someone’s feelings.
And then I mailed out that letter to all the people on my list, even those who had unfriended me. Dylan was in college, Shane was finishing high school, and I was feeling more alone than ever. But I decided that July 2020 letter would be my last one.
Now, 18 months later, my heart is a little broken. My family is a little broken. Some of my dear friends are gone from my life forever. And the holidays are here, but they’re a bit broken, too.
So I am sad to be not writing a Christmas letter this year. But maybe, if I get super-motivated, I’ll send out a couple of cards.