I’m not sure exactly when the tradition started, but every year Peter would compose an annual Christmas letter to send out with our cards. Peter was keenly aware that Christmas letters could go horribly, horribly wrong. We’d gotten some doozies over the years, including one that devoted a whole paragraph to the new car a couple had added to their family. So Peter took a less standard approach to the Christmas letter. His letters were always self-deprecating and comic. He shared the comic gems that the girls had said throughout the year, as well as our grown-up foibles. He collected these stories and snapshots all year long. One of us would say something funny, and the next thing you knew, he’d be tapping away on his Palm, storing away this tidbit for when he began work on the annual letter in December.
When he first began writing these letters, the girls were not really conscious of them, or of the starring role they sometimes played. As they got older, though, they started tuning in, both to the collecting of stories that was going on during the year, and to the final product. One time, probably when Emma was finishing middle school, she said something funny or ironic that made us all laugh. I have absolutely no recollection of what she said that was so funny. What I do remember is her shooting a look at Peter the moment the words left her mouth and then saying, “Oh no! That’s going in the Christmas letter, isn’t it?!”
In truth, both Sarah and Emma liked the letters. Peter was a master and we couldn’t help but enjoy reading and laughing about our family’s funny life together. Somehow, by celebrating our quirks and foibles, the letters perfectly reflected our special bond and expressed our love of each other and our life together. In fact, Emma so admired Peter’s letters, she wrote one herself one year - an Emma’s-eye view of life with her funny family. I’ve got to track that down…
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