If you take the time to create a great format for your holiday letter this year, you can use and reuse the template year after year. Follow the guideline below to customize your family's holiday greeting.
Greeting
Start the Christmas letter with a date, so that you can create a record of your annual holiday cards. Something as simple as "December 2009" at the top of the page is all you need to include. Next, welcome your readers to your card. A few words, such as "Holiday Greetings," "Season's Greetings," "Happy Holidays," or "Merry Christmas," may be cliché, but they will always answer the need.
Introduction
The first sentence or two should be an overview to your letter and refer to the past year. If you have chosen to include a theme, this is the location where you should clue your readers in to it. Take a look at the following examples:
- Theme is an automobile analogy: "So, in case this 2009 model is the last year of production, let me roll out all the bells and whistles, put it into overdrive, and race to the finish line. Life is a journey …Enjoy the trip!"
- Theme is based on a Sudoku puzzle: "Since our busy lives are like the 3.5 trillion solutions that are possible for any given Sudoku grid, I am being totally trendy, and offering you our family's Sudoku for 2009."
Body of Letter
Divide up the letter into several short paragraphs. Visually, this layout is less intimidating to your readers than one huge paragraph. Organizationally, this layout will help you to clarify your purpose, streamline your writing, and keep your readers engaged.
The content should include a few lines about each family member. Consider including both highlights and lowlights of each person's year. While you don't want to degrade your family, a holiday newsletter that does nothing but brag about how smart, beautiful, talented, privileged, etc. your family is, quickly becomes tiresome to its readers.
If you are a creative writer, the body of the letter is where you can make your greeting sing! Incorporate your theme into the words you choose:
- Theme is an automobile analogy: "Sam's year was a metaphorical El Camino (Chevy's half car/half truck muscle vehicle), in the sense that most of his experiences this year can be viewed from two very different aspects."
- Theme is Broadway musicals: "Jim and Sam were the producers of the spooky extravaganza, as they transformed our front yard into a little shop of horrors, complete with eerie ghosts heading into the woods, a home for the criminally insane and an evil laboratory. Needless to say, the neighborhood children, (Annie, Fanny, Oliver, his pal Joey, and Victor/Victoria), were a chorus line of scared kids!"
Conclusion
Wrap up your holiday letter with your blessings for the coming year. If you have used a theme up to this point, work it into your ending to tie up any loose ends.
- Theme is an automobile analogy: "Wishing you and yours the most merry of holiday seasons, as you fire up the engine and head for the open road of 2010!"
Janice Benoit - I'm Janice Benoit and I live in suburban Chicago. I have worked in most facets of the hospitality industry -- from hotel front desk to ...
