We are now entering one of my favorite months of the year – the time when we craft that all-important holiday letter.
Oh, sure, some of you may pooh-pooh the practice but you just haven’t been properly trained.
A family letter can test your ability to spin just about anything. Think like a politician and it can positively glow.
How to rewrite history? Here’s our primer.
1. First, begin with the salutation. “Merry Christmas!” isn’t all-inclusive and “Happy holidays!” seems so generic. Use a foreign phrase and they’ll think you’re smarter than you really are. “Buon Natale!” could lead them to believe you went to Italy this year, instead of saving the placemat lfrom Olive Garden.
2. Mention that you’re really busy and you don’t know if you’ll get to all the parties you’ve been invited to. (You haven’t been invited to any, but that doesn’t mean you could make them if you were.)
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3. Talk about your children’s accomplishments. If Jimmy played dodgeball once, you can say, “James Jr. led his soccer team in assists,” even though he was eliminated in the first round and basically handed others bottles of water. If Debbie is in danger of flunking out of high school, you can say, “Deborah is considering the many educational options she has, including Harvard, Yale and Stanford.” If the baby still isn’t potty trained and he’s 9, you can say, “Doctors say they’ve never encountered such an exceptional child.”
4. Use phrases you’ve found on plaques in Hobby Lobby. “Life’s too short!” could be a real good one to spin your husband’s firing. “James is finally getting a chance to pursue his dreams. Because his company hasn’t kept up with industry changes, he decided to take his proprietary information public, reasoning, ‘Life’s too short!’”
5. Turn a negative into a positive. “James has added ‘day trader’ to his long list of interests.” In truth, Jim is spending all those days at home playing video games on the computer.
6. Give yourself some long-range accomplishment that can never be traced. “I’m putting the finishing touches on my first novel. So many publishers are vying for publication, I guess I’ll have to go with the one that gives the most to charity.” Yeah, right. You know you haven’t written more than a text in five years but you can always throw in “Russian hacking” if someone wants to see proof.
7. That “charity” line can go a long way, too. Even if you just flipped a kid a nickel after you brought back cans, you can count it. For good measure, talk about how you’re so involved in your children’s activities. If you got to go first at parent-teacher conferences, that definitely spells “leadership.” If you opened the pack of Oreos for Jimmy and his friends, you were “feeding the hungry.”
8. Vacations always make holiday letters. A boat ride on the lake can be classified as a “cruise.” A visit to North Sioux, South Sioux and Sioux City in one day can count as a “whirlwind” trip. A week at home because you couldn’t afford to go anywhere is definitely a “spa vacation” at a “rustic getaway.” Yeah, that’s code for “the sinks are clogged.”
9. Weight gain is always a problem – particularly when friends say, “I barely recognized you, you’ve gained so much weight.” If you’re doing a photo, wear black and lean in. If you want to mask it, shake the cellphone when you take the picture. It’ll look dramatic. If you feel you must address it, you can always say you’re in a “pharmaceutical trial” that’s likely to produce some big, big news next year.
10. Finally, close with a wish for the new year: “I hope 2017 brings you everything you deserve.” Sometimes, you don’t even have spin the message to get the point across.
So, until next year, joyeux Noel! I'd write more, but I'm weighing those book offers!
