A Blog is NOT a Christmas Letter!

A couple of moms I know (my own and someone else’s) have remarked that “everything always looks so perfect on a blog.”

That is simply not true.

Well, yes, in some way I suppose we do try to shed the best light on things—it’s part of our maturation process. We go from whining over the state of things to learning how to appreciate what blessings we do have.

But everything does not always look perfect in the land of blogs. In short, a blog is not a Christmas letter.

You know what I’m talking about, don’t you? Those awful Christmas letters you get in the mail, printed on cutesy holiday stationery. It’s not a bad idea, really. . .it’s the way they are so often executed.

For instance. Obviously, the letter is written by one person in the family (almost always the wife, of course, because, as so many of us have had the misfortune to discover, MEN DON’T WRITE). And yet, said letter is written in the third person, as if some stranger has been living, unnoticed, in the household for the past year, keeping track of the goings-on of everyone in the family. Then it is signed by all, to give us the impression that the letter was written by the family as a whole (which we all know is simply not the case).

Christmas letters always highlight, in glowing terms, the accomplishments of each family member over the past year. “Little Pee Wee loves preschool and is doing so well.” “Junior made captain of the T-ball team.” “Missy starred in each and every school play.”

We don’t get to hear how Little Pee Wee sasses Mom and Dad on a daily basis, or how Junior got five detentions for fighting in school, or how Missy got drunk at the class party and was escorted home by the police.

Okay, I’m exaggerating. But isn’t it so true? In the standard Christmas letter, every family looks and sounds perfect. I remember one year writing my own Christmas letter (in first person point-of-view, thank you very much!) and telling folks that our cat had been hit by a car. I felt like I was violating some sacred rule of Christmas letters: “Thou shalt not convey any unpleasant news.”

Now, on the other hand, we have blogs.

I am relatively new to the world of blogging, having only just begun reading blogs in mid-August and having only just started my own blog last month. However, in that short time, I have had the privilege of reading about the everyday struggles of normal folks. . .

• Some mothers’ very, very bad days.
• A friend’s determination to overcome depression.
• One woman’s third miscarriage.
• A farm girl’s kitchen mishap.
• Husbands having to plow tons and tons of snow.
• People having to give up caffeine, and people trying to lose weight.
• Friends enduring the trials of building their own house (yes, actually building it themselves, with their own two hands).

Some of that stuff is more serious than the rest, of course, but you get the idea. Honest bloggers share their lives with the rest of us—they tell us what’s really going on (good and bad), and they tell us in their own words. They do try to find the good in everything, because if they didn’t. . .well, that just wouldn’t do.

Which reminds me of someone who used to do nothing but violate the sacred rule of Christmas letters. His letters (yes, it actually was a man) were so overwhelmingly dismal that we couldn’t help but laugh.

He would have loved blogging.

 

* * * * *

And now, so that you’ll think my life is Christmas-letter perfect*, I will provide you with this glimpse of the camellias over the white picket fence that separates our yard from the neighbor’s.

*It’s totally not perfect. Today was “one of those days.” Brian had won a gift certificate to a popular local restaurant, so we went there for lunch. The boys were so loud (way noisier than they usually are in restaurants). Then we went to Target to finish up some Christmas shopping, and they were practically killing each other in the shopping cart. More fighting at the grocery store; then home again for yet more fighting! I am so glad it’s bedtime! (Of course, they’re so sweet when they’re sleeping, and all the travails of the day are forgotten!)