The Last Christmas Letter?

I'll never say never, but I will say, "not now."

Am I kissing my favorite holiday tradition goodbye? Signs point to yes.

I was smug about it. I low-key scoffed at the letter-less holiday photo cards that flooded my mailbox. Sure, I enjoyed a charming collage of photos whimsically curated by Shutterfly as much as the next guy, but where were the clever missives chronicling the year’s events (I said “low-key” scoffed! Please don’t cross my name off your holiday card list.)? Why were so few Gen X-ers willing to preserve this gorgeous tradition? Was I the only woman my age who looked forward to reading the pile of holiday letters that her mom toted along to the Christmas gathering every year?

Truth be told, perhaps my fondness for Christmas letters has its roots in voyeurism. Or pettiness. I spent more than one adolescent holiday season scornfully rebuking letters featuring not-so-humble brags about all the special and important accomplishments of everyone’s children. Holiday letters were the OG “My kid is an honor student!” bumper sticker. I rolled my eyes at the shameless gushing over dozens of Dudley Dursleys and then snickered at the grammatically incorrect, inane ramblings of my Boomer + relatives. (Yes, I was an asshole, and so are you for pointing out the inaccuracy of my use of past tense.)

Then came the incarnation of letters featuring long-winded descriptions of aging relatives’ cataract surgeries, hemorrhoids, and broken hips. My brother and I chortled at the depressing earnestness of it all (joke’s on us now; who has two thumbs and a dozen physical therapists in her wake?). Even during my ceaseless mockery phase, I still craved the letters, a pre-social media window through which to peer at our neighbors’ lives.

There were a select few that I eagerly tore into each year, cleverly written by an elite handful of family and friends, letters that made me laugh out loud before we were LOL-ing. I wanted to be these witty letter-writers when I grew up.

Perhaps the origin of my penchant for this tradition is coming into focus: nostalgia mixed with voyeurism mixed with pettiness mixed with. . . get ready for the secret ingredient: my insatiable competitiveness.

That’s right, I defied any recipient of my holiday card to find a more enjoyable annual missive than my skillfully penned soliloquy full of inside joke Easter eggs and subtle turns of phrase. While it may seem unimpressive to aspire to be the best at a pastime that nearly everyone else on the planet has dismissed as irrelevant or a waste of time, oh, how I aspired! I was going to be the best, dammit. I loved writing my holiday cards. I looked forward to it.

I could put my wordsmithy wit on full display while also walking the fine line of humble bragging about my own offspring, always revealing some of their less charming characteristics in what I hoped was a self-deprecating, “We’re all in this together!” sort of way. One year, after listing my oldest daughter’s five-year-old hobbies and hyper-fixations, I wrote that her baby sister’s “interests include Mommy’s boobs.” I felt certain that my in-laws would be appalled, but nevertheless, I persisted in my irreverent quest.

(In fact, I may have had an “alternative holiday letter” one year that certain family members did not receive. No, Mom and Dad, you’ve always gotten the real deal. See also: My parents attending frequent comedy shows where I talk about pubic hair and vibrators. The propriety ship has sailed. 🤷‍♀️)

Holiday letters became harder to write, starting with the 2016 election and extending into 2019 when my youngest broke her arm and we had a disruptive house flood. This was of course followed by a global pandemic mixed with my family’s micro-crises of chronic pain and bullying. Writing a funny holiday letter was less fun and more daunting—they became imbued with less lighthearted humor and more of the gallows variety mixed with existential introspection.

Last year, I wrote an abbreviated letter that inadvertently printed on a shitty pattern on the back of our photo card. Like most of last year’s holiday season, I don’t remember a single thing I wrote.

I do remember this moment. Sometimes when you need to use the restroom at Kohl’s, you hit the jackpot. And I don’t mean a 30% off coupon, I mean this guy.

I started writing a holiday letter because it was a bridge between childhood and adulthood. It was a signal that I had “arrived”—a marker of my own successful autonomy. I had a fiance and a job! Then a townhouse! A dog! A baby! Mailing a Walgreens photo of myself with my first husband and first puppy under a tacky artificial tree essentially ushered me into the realm of “competent grown-up.”

I kept writing it because of the aforementioned irresistible fuel of nostalgia, my competitive drive to outdo my previous years’ efforts, and the one thing that has been a constant in my life: a ferocious need to connect with other people.

It’s why I returned to writing when my oldest was a toddler, why I started blogging when my youngest was a baby, why I feverishly published essays and articles when my girls were young. It’s why I produce shows and why I podcast. Because I am trying to make sense of things, trying to find meaning, and because I desperately don’t want to feel like I am alone out here.

My holiday letters were my smoke signals, my ships in bottles, my carrier pigeon notes. But I think maybe I’ve outgrown them.

Is there a point to writing a long letter when everyone can just read Facebook posts or scroll Instagram stories? Why would I send a letter about my year when my Substack column sits here patiently with its hands folded to politely welcome anyone in the world who wants to read it? Have we all outgrown the intermittent intimacy of the annual holiday letter?

In many ways, I want to write my letter, but the push and pull of the pace of my current life makes such a time-consuming endeavor an energy drain I can’t afford. And that makes me mad and sad; I don’t want to live in a world where we are all so busy that spending a few hours slouched over a pile of cards, envelopes, and stamps at the dining room table is the task that pushes you over the edge into depletion. “Bandwidth” should not be so irrevocably intertwined with the art of correspondence.

Maybe someday I will write another holiday letter and mail it to my old list. Maybe someday I will tell you a love story, or a midlife coming-of-age heroine’s journey. Maybe someday I will mail a letter sharing my travels around the world. I dream of holiday letters humble-bragging about gorgeous grandchildren and the swing dancing lessons I took up after life settled down and book tours and best friends celebrated on beaches, and maybe a romance that carries me into a sunset.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Here is my last holiday letter, for now. I wrote a version that was too serious and earnest and navel-gazey, so I set it on fire and started over.

Dear Reader,

This year I painted my dining room red. Fine, I hired someone to do it. We also created a bright yellow Whimsy Wall in the hallway and hung adorable thrifted art all over it. My youngest and I spent hours decorating in early November and put up an unprecedented five Christmas trees as a fever dream antidote to another democratic dumpster fire. One of them is pink, and it is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

I wrote a bunch of jokes about my naughtiest rescue dog eating my underwear and then he died from maybe probably eating my underwear, among many other things. I drove five hours at dawn after hosting an out-of-state comedy show to come home to say goodbye to him. He was like Mary Poppins. He came into my life just when I needed him, but I think he also knew when it was time to leave.

I cut bangs again. I can’t be monogamous to a hairstyle. I stopped forcing myself to cook normal meals and we leaned in hard to Girl Dinners. We are night owls. We stay up too late watching Schitt’s Creek and doing word puzzles and then we say, “How is it 11:00 already?” and then we do it again. She learned how to make scrambled eggs, and sometimes she brings me some in bed at 9:30 pm, like right this minute (they are inexplicably disgusting and I can’t say why. I gave them to Winnie). We spent half the year exclusively listening to The Tortured Poets Department.

She makes bracelets and tissue paper flowers and leaves food trash all over the house. I make jokes and art and music and leave coffee mugs all over the house. We have a punchbowl full of community ADHD meds (that’s a joke, but barely).

I cried a lot this year, but I also bought thrifted furniture and art for our newly colorful home and my soon-to-be writing workshop basement and I started remembering how to read novels and watch TV shows. My nervous system has not recalibrated. But it’s trying. I’m trying.

I am taking a sabbatical from my column and as many other things as I can feasibly set down for the remainder of December. I am tired, you guys. This year I learned who I was and what I’m made of. Now I’m going to spend the rest of 2024 in Mary Oliver mode, letting the soft animal of my body love what it loves: Books and music and rest and coffee and friends, and goodness, who knows what else?

Happiest of Decembers to you, and thank you for being my beloved readers.

XOXO,
Steph