Holiday Newsletters

At this time of year, holiday cards and accompanying newsletters arrive from friends and family far and wide. Ours still come in the mail (you remember, the mailbox?), but whether your delivery system is snail mail or electronic, those newsletters can be problematic. Sure, it’s great to catch up with far away folks, but it can be tricky to find that balance between updating and deluging. A month-by-month summary just might be a bit TMI, but my personal pet peeve is the dreaded “B”: bragging. Ugh.

Isn’t he exceptional?!

Here’s an example. I might have included this photo in our newsletter a few years back. (Make that 29 years back…)  I could have said, “David took his first steps at nine months, two full months ahead of average!” Or, I could have said, “David is happy to be finally walking. Now he’s investigating his options for running away from home. Anyone have a full set of Ninja Turtle transformers?” Which version do you like better?!

Several years ago I decided to try a newsletter because my motivation for handwriting the same newsy message over and over was waning. In other words, it wasn’t going to happen.  I wanted to take the “slice of life” approach (rather than the comprehensive “here’s everything that happened” approach), and I hoped to keep it light and entertaining enough that people might actually enjoy reading it. So, I designed a one-page newsletter, complete with photos, in a reasonable font size, and I called it “News From the Horn Front.” (Like “The Home Front.” Get it? WWII? Do you have to be a history teacher or history buff to get it?) I’ve done a newsletter for at least ten years now, and it still works.

Here’s our 2015 newsletter:

As you can clearly see, mine is not a high-tech product. I like to think of it as “folksy.” I build the page using text boxes that I adjust as I build my stories, and I settle for cheesy clip art graphics. (Yes, it could look better, but I wouldn’t want to be mistaken for a slick professional!) If you’d like to give this type of newsletter a try, here are some tips:

1. Divide your news into categories. I typically use five categories, the “pets” category being very small. My other categories are: Todd and Jane (some years I separate them, depending on how much material I have for a “travel” section); Thanksgiving (with our family photo); Travel (two trips in 2015); and David (after all, we only have one kid, and he’s exceptional… as well as much taller than the average man!).
2. Keep it short, and keep it light. If it’s a year that I need to report something sad, I try to do it with a gentle touch. (There’s also often humor to be found in sadness. You know, we smile through our tears?)
3. Adjust your word count to fit the allotted space. Fewer words are almost always better, and shrinking font size to minuscule to fit in more words just doesn’t come out well.  (Trust me, no one will read your newsletter if a magnifying glass is required.)
4. Tell stories. Everyone enjoys a good story.
5. Choose your photos wisely — not every one should be posed. Here’s the photo I’ll be using for this year’s newsletter:

Todd, Jane, Kelly & David in Vienna!

I like it because we look like we’re having fun together. And guess what? We were having fun together. We were at a Christmas Market in Vienna, part of a Danube River cruise that we took over Thanksgiving. I could use a photo that features the market rather than our faces, but I’m betting that our friends and family want to see our mugs more. Except….. it really was beautiful!

I’ll leave you with an example from the 2015 newsletter pictured above. (I know, I know. It’s annoying to be expected to read from the slightly blurry photo. Now, if I had an iPhone 7 with the cool new double-lens camera… just sayin’!) Here’s the photo and story I used for the “David” section. Notice my deft avoidance of outright bragging, and who doesn’t love pictures of horses?!:

David finished a “full stack” software design program this fall and is closing in on a tech job in the Bay Area. Sweet! It looks like he’ll be working for a California fruit company. Avocado? No, that’s not quite right. (But avocado is a fruit!) He’s enjoying himself in San Francisco, living in the Presidio. He hikes in the Marin Headlands and pops out to Tahoe for a dose of skiing and mountains. (After all, David is a Colorado boy.) His terrific girlfriend Kelly came to the ranch for Thanksgiving, cowgirl boots in tow. She fit right in!