As a proud elder millennial, I’ve lived through the merciless, unrelenting progress of the internet as it moved from invention and novelty to world domination, and true to my generational stereotypes, I’ve accepted it as an anxiety-triggering inevitability.
Hell, I’ve embraced it, but with only one arm, and I’m reading a paperback when it leaves the room.
But I digest ... mostly cookies for the next three days.
The internet has killed many things, good and bad, but this tribute is in remembrance of the annual family Christmas letter.
If demographic research is to be believed, those reading this likely remember the days of Christmas cards in their mailbox and letters inside providing a highlight reel for the previous year’s family news.
I probably owe my career to those yearly updates, though they may not want the credit.
It began with a thirst — I’d like to say for knowledge, but it was probably for the tea.
Better than any comment section, and without the necessity of a decontamination shower after reading, those letters told me about marriages, divorces, births, deaths, graduations, career changes, moves, and the number of cats now living with my cousin’s friend’s aunt. Mom kept in touch with a wide circle. I think you could make her Christmas card list with little more than a curt nod while passing her in the dressings and sauces aisle at A&P. (There’s a throwback for you.)
After a couple of years of studying the writing genre that is the family Christmas letter, I asked for the job of writing ours — or maybe my mom asked me first. Details schmeetails.
They say you should write what you know, and as an adolescent, I knew my parents were lame. I led with that.
The Engel family letters served a Christmas roast with my mom as the punchline of most of my jokes. I cooked up elaborate stories about her getting lost in her crafting hobbies and her late-night cake-decorating episodes.
She was a good sport about it — moms are saints — but I did get a “respect your mother” lecture from my grandpa. Sarcasm is my love language, Gramps.
Anyway, karma came for me as I started to notice myself becoming more and more like the mom I was writing about. Bedtime? More like time to start a new project.
People did start to tell me they looked forward to my yearly family updates. It’s not boasting; just facts. That’s what I do.
Alas, the letters have ceased as their writer has moved on to writing for the internet.
Those letters didn’t teach me anything about objectivity, Oxford commas, the inverted pyramid or Canadian Press style, but I did learn how good it felt to have people compliment my writing.
Sorry, were you expecting a heartwarming conclusion?
Until next year, merry Christmas from the Engel family.
Erika Engel is the editor of CollingwoodToday.
