The Christmas Letter: What Not to Do

Ah, yes . . . it's time to write the Christmas letter. If you haven't yet, you might want to read this Christmas-letter-writing advice from the LawJedi at Liberty Files. Take heed, for example, of this piece of advice.

And as a rule you are always safe avoiding any discussion of any urological, gynecological, colorectal or dermatological conditions that have developed or which were treated in the past year (or ever for that matter). Remember, if it can't be discussed over Italian food, it's probably also improper in the Christmas letter. And just in case you were wondering, simply mentioning any of those problems by the medical discipline is just as bad as going into the details, given that they leave way too much to the imagination.

Good rule.

And I'll pass along another bit of advice that LawJedi doesn't mention. Please don't fill your letter with information about the three dozen extracurricular activites your beautiful and smart children are involved in and all the awards and ribbons they've won and their supernaturally high grade point averages and test scores and how they're going to attend Princeton or Harvard next fall even though they're only 16. And please don't write about how many times you went to your cabin on the lake this summer--the "cabin" that's three times bigger than our house. And don't write about all the vacations you took to France or Italy or Greece or the Lesser Antilles, or about how you finally bought that 50-ft. yacht and spend every weekend on it.

If the above describes you in any way, please be considerate of those of us struggling with envy and just say "Merry Christmas." Doing so will make it very easy for us to say "Merry Christmas" right back instead of muttering under our breath "Die, scumbag."