STAY IN TOUCH
A Widow Bit – Jan. 10, 2010
By Mary Koch

            The Internet is allegedly endangering long-standing institutions and traditions – newspapers, for example. I’m wondering if the venerable Christmas family newsletter may not be another victim.

            Christmas letters became something of a folk art in recent decades, thanks (or some would say, no thanks) to the proliferation of copy machines, digital cameras and scanners. The annual missives also became the butt of jokes. Comedians do hilarious take-offs. I have a friend who, when living overseas, would get together with other expats after Christmas to hold a competition – giving an award for the most obnoxiously egotistical Christmas letter received from the folks back home.

            Admittedly, some people go to excess, sending out multi-paged, single-spaced, detailed reports, the high point being successful toilet-training of a 3-year-old grandchild. Still, I’ve always been a sucker for Christmas letters. I was discouraged this year to receive only 13, when in years past we would receive several dozen. Part of the problem, I’m sure, is that I haven’t sent Christmas cards since John died. People get discouraged and cross you off their list.

             At the same time, I’ve noticed an increase in e-mail greetings. They’re easier, less expensive,  “greener,” and fun, too. Yet I’m looking at this year’s small stack of letters as if they were so many spotted owls – remnants from a different era, a time before e-mail, blogging, texting, Twittering, and in-your-Facebook.

            OK. I too am guilty of omnipresent, electronic communications.  That makes me all the more grateful for my few friends who stubbornly persisted this year – even if some letters were computer generated. Generally speaking, the writers had a good year filled with wedding anniversaries; volunteering; chairing various committees, service and professional organizations; undergoing surgery and, in some cases, not undergoing surgery; gardening; remodeling homes and offices, and attending high school reunions.

            One, at age 78, gave up skiing after 74 years on the slopes. Another took up competitive running at age 42. One got pregnant, another got fired. A couple men, as one wife put it, “flunked” retirement.

            The children, grandchildren and – gasp – great-grandchildren (who play soccer, are exemplary students and talented artists) graduated, turned 21, got married, dutifully visited their parents/grandparents/great-grandparents, had babies, and even retired.

            “You know you are old,” observed one letter-writer, “when your children are, too!”

            My friends are philosophical about getting older. One of the two letters that were in rhyming verse offered this: “I think I will write a new book, with diligence and hope. I’ll call it, ‘This Old House, This Old Plumbing and These Two Old People Trying to Cope.’”

            My friends traveled. Oh, did they travel – all across the United States from the Straits of Juan de Fuca to Washington, D.C. They cruised to Alaska, along the Blue Danube, through the Panama Canal and around the Hawaiian Islands. They went to Mexico, Israel and even Haiti.

            One, who turned 70 and celebrated her golden wedding anniversary, wrote: “It just keeps getting better.”

            I know you could Twitter that, but it wouldn’t be the same.