Holiday Letters Aren't Just for Christmas Anymore

Christmas is now long past, and you've gathered up the holiday cards you received from your family and friends and...well, what did you do with them?  I'm never sure what I'm supposed to do with them, so please tell me.

But the point is you are done with that for another year. Or so you think. Because if you are on my address list, you know you need to rush to your mailbox on Tuesday. You peek inside with gleeful anticipation and voila! My holiday card is a Valentine card.

This tradition started 7 years ago when we went to Taiwan for two weeks at the end of December. I had never traveled to the Far East before, and spent far too much time deciding what to bring, especially so I could avoid going into drug stores and pointing at body parts to get the right supplies. With all that going on, I decided holiday cards would have to wait for the next suitable holiday. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day? President's Day? Both are great holidays, but, well, the post office doesn't deliver mail on those days. Ah! I know. Valentine's Day.

The cool thing about sending Valentine's Day holiday letters is that your letter is the only one people get that day. So they actually read it. Sure, they sometimes get a card or two from their child or their mother, but these don't have the requisite typed letter of fascinating details from my year. With no competition from the great unwashed masses, my letter is riveting.

Nevertheless, I feel compelled to make it a good read if I can, and I always adhere to one strict rule: one page with reasonable margins and font. After all, did you read page 9 of Cousin Jane's missive, where she provided an in depth analysis of her children's diaper changes on their summer road trip?  Years later, I found out the trip was cut short when a favorite uncle on the other side of her family died and left her several million dollars, a yacht, and most of North Dakota, but I never realized this amidst the boring minutia.

A few years ago, however, I made a terrible mistake. My one page letter included a gimmick. For some reason, I thought an all-Haiku letter was just the thing. The following Christmas, when the stack of cards arrived, several people scrawled "Looking forward to your creative Valentine's letter".

Great. Now I have to come up with a creative, new gimmick every year. The gimmick can't include art, because no art genes are present in our family tree. So we are stuck with rearranging words on a page. This year, I decided to steal from the best, and incorporated 16 Shakespearean quotes in the letter. The idea is  vaguely related to our lives, since we went to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival last June. Whew. Another year's gimmick solved.

Next year? I have no idea. Please help me. Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your gimmicks.  Remember: one page, no art.