Your Christmas letter is deeply impersonal. It says "I felt obligated to write an essay but felt no compunction whatsoever to reveal anything about myself, my life, or any of the details that I would share with you if we were actually in better contact."

SO CHECK IT

We limited the christmas card list to 100 people this year and there were omissions and forgottens. But we've now conducted ourselves professionally and personally in two metropolises over the past fifteen years and have family scattered across seven states.

We've also had an eventful damn year and when you do see someone for the first time in a few years, you owe them the kindness of not saying "so yeah we had a kid opened a business rebuilt the house and moved a thousand miles, not necessarily in that order. What have you been up to?"

Especially if you know how to write.

The problem with lots of Christmas letters is nobody knows what they're for. Some of them end up being long-form brags. Some of them end up being rambling bitch-fests about your mother. Written with any humanity, however, they become your summary of your year for the people that are important to you.

One of the Christmas letters we got included the phrase "we drove across Nevada very fast." Another included "John's business has grown to 25 employees." They're both great, they're both in context, and neither is competing with the other. Not only that, neither letter wallows in the 'our life is tougher than yours.'

Because you know what? Nobody wants to read that. Nobody wants to hear your ass focusing on your hardships at this time of year. We're certain you faced them, just like all of us, but this is a time of celebration and we want to hear what went right. We want to hear what you're looking forward to.

We want reassurance that you're okay. Because we know that if you weren't, you'd have reached out.

Nearly all the people who received our letter - all 100 of them - knew some or all of the backstory behind our letter. They knew the nasty shit we didn't write down, they knew the impossible bullshit we had to swallow, they knew how rugged the year actually was. The function of the letter, for them, was to celebrate our year with us, push through the bullshit and look forward to future success.