Those Christmas Letters

Though the sending of round-robin Christmas letters seems to have gone out of fashion, or maybe the kind of people who used to send them have just taken us off their lists, which has deprived us of some innocent amusement, this is still hysterical: Lynne Truss’ Christmas round-robin letters: The revenge . For example, from “Take two” (of six):

. . . The point is, I love your family, you see. You have generously shared your lives with me, and the result is I love you very, very much. I feel so included! Someone told me that families send out these letters to just everyone in their address books — maybe hundreds at a time, completely indiscriminately! With no thought to the situation of the person receiving them!

But I know you wouldn’t do that. I know you write them just for me.

Caro, I promised myself I wouldn’t tell you this, but I was actually on the verge of doing something very silly four years ago when your Christmas letter came through. I won’t go into details, but what with the fire, and then the mauling, then the second fire, then the double murder and everything, I was feeling a bit low. But when I saw that close-up of Sasha’s scab after she tripped over Goofy’s foot at Disneyworld - I thought “Stop! What is Caro telling you here? She’s saying that if little Sasha can carry on after a set-back like that, so can you!”

I’ll sign off soon. It gets dark so early this time of year. I just wanted to say please, please KEEP SENDING THESE LOVELY CHRISTMAS NEWSLETTERS. They brighten my darkness. If I ever suspected that you and your family weren’t truly happy — that these letters embellished things, or hid things, or exaggerated, or misrepresented - I’d be absolutely destroyed. Perhaps you could send them MONTHLY? Or even ONCE A WEEK? In fact, tell you what, Caro. This has honestly just occurred to me. Can I come and live with you?

Lynne

PS: Please excuse the damp patches on this letter. They are only the marks of my tears.