I am a writer. I’ve never had a book published, but if the test is the effect, then I, you, we, are writers. Because our writing connects people. Writing changes people. Writing changes me.
Christmas letters are writing, too.
Writing doesn’t have to be an academic paper, or a chapter, to have an impact, to cause a gentle ripple across the world. Writing that has impact is the Christmas letter I sent out in late November to catch the international posting deadlines. My goal in my annual-ish missive is to meet the high standard set the first year I started writing these, around 2020, when I was writing to let my friends and family know that I was getting divorced. It’s not the 1950s, but when you live 5000 miles, five time zones and a whole continent away, some things are better done off social media. This high standard set was an acknowledgement from my friend Sean, a forthright, honest, Northern British (it makes a difference) former journalist who said he actually enjoyed reading my letter. Faint praise, maybe, but I’ll take it. This, now, is the bar. Will each Christmas letter pass the Sean test?
Annual challenge–will it pass the test?
This last letter, 2024, started out with a description of my writing environs that day; my teenage daughter’s room, full of lilac and mauve soft furnishings, white fluffy cushions, stuffed animals, a real, live rabbit named Bunbun, and a large, equally real-live, black dog called Smokey, asleep on the cushion-strewn bed. (The rabbit is the aggressor in the relationship.) I mailed them out in stages, taking time to handwrite and personalize the greeting and sign-off for each, and slip in some family photos I’d printed two years ago, meaning to send then. (Like I said, annual-ish.) Christmas came and went, with some messages thanking me for the letter, or the card.
An unexpected phonecall.
Then, two days ago, I received a call which I almost didn’t answer. You know the kind; a friend who really is a friend but you haven’t spoken on the phone in a few years so it must just be a butt dial. I answered anyway. I’m so glad I did, Anna sounded on the edge of tears.
It was your Christmas letter, she told me. She had just returned from visiting her family in Kazakstan, so she hadn’t seen my letter until last week. It reminded her of her own teenage years and her own teenage dreams. Now, neglected in her marriage, and her children at elementary and high school, she has remembered her own ambitions.
“I cried when I read it,” she said, “It was like my very own room, thank you for writing it.” For more than an hour, she poured out the problems in her marriage, some of which I had been aware of in the past, none of which had been resolved. But she is starting to rediscover her hidden-away potential and power; she is applying to have her nursing degree recognized in the UK to enable her to finally start her career
I know that it wasn’t my letter that did all that, but it was the prompt for her to call me, in the way that a Facebook message had not prompted for the past six years or so since we’d seen each other. A letter gave me the space to write in a way that might seem self-indulgent in a post, or too long for a text, but gave her the confidence that, having invested the time to write, I would also be willing to listen.
Author, audience, effect.
I was probably self-indulgent in my letter. I even wondered at the time if my descriptions were too flowery. But it’s ok if I lost some readers this year. I met a new standard – the Anna test. My letter created an unexpected reaction, which reconnected our friendship. Sorry, Sean, this is now the bar–Christmas letters that are not only enjoyable to read, but can also rekindle connections.
When we write, we connect across time, distance, and demographics. Isn’t this what we all aspire to? And Anna’s response changed something for me, too. It reminded me that, from 5000 miles away, through writing, my voice is audible, my audience is real, and my words can help.
