I just finished writing our family Christmas letter for 2008. I struggled about what to write, so I kept it short. But now I’m happy with the text and it’s ready to print out and stuff into a stack of Christmas cards.

If you are panicking over a tradition you once cherished, but don’t know how to deal with it this year, here’s a rerun of my 2007 post “Writing Christmas letters when the news isn’t good“:

We started including family newsletters with our Christmas cards in 2004.

That year, my husband and I bought our first house. So we had something to brag about. We also had lived in Monroe long enough at that point that we had not seen some friends and extended family in Ohio for quite awhile.

My first Christmas letter was a half page. I didn’t go into details about my husband working a series of short-term temp jobs late that year after a long-term contract assignment ended. Instead, I talked about moving to our new house early in the year and what it was like to have a high school student in the family. It was a very short, very upbeat kind of letter.

By the time Christmas 2005 came around, my husband still did not have a permanent job. We were pretty stressed out from that year’s cycle of unemployment checks and low-paying temp assignments.

What was I going to put in the Christmas letter? My uncle was writing about his family vacations, a cousin was writing about his business ventures. In comparison, we had not much to brag about.

I decided to write about our holiday traditions. “I invite you to stop by for an imaginary visit if you are not able to see us in person this year …” I told them what cookies and coffee drinks I would serve, the music my husband would play on the stereo, and the Christmas decorations each of us had selected to display that year at home.

That letter was very well received, even more so from those who knew what the rest of our year had been like.

Since then, I’ve read other letters from people who are pretty blunt about the fact it had not been a good year for them.

The first Christmas letter we got in 2006 was from one of my husband’s old friends. The letter, written by the wife, explained that the husband had lost a long-term job on very short notice. They were so distraught over the situation that they packed up and moved in a matter of days. By the time Christmas came around, they could report on a new home and a new job, but anyone who read the letter knew they were still recovering from the chaos.

Another letter came from a cousin whose husband was deployed to Iraq. Her friends were checking in on her, but she had no family nearby. It was obvious from the letter that my cousin was lonely. After Mom and I read that letter, we told the rest of our family to include this cousin on their Christmas card list and why.

And yesterday I got a card from a friend whom I knew had taken on a new job … but I had not heard where. She explained in her Christmas letter that her hours had been cut at her previous job, and she was concerned about what was coming next. She jumped at another opportunity that came up, and explained the training time includes crazy hours.

Well, that explains why I haven’t heard from my friend lately.

And then she includes this line in her letter: “We are kind of disappointed when your card doesn’t send news, so please send at least a line or two so we know what’s up.”

So if you’re wondering what to write in a Christmas letter when the news isn’t good, remember that your friends and relatives still want to hear from you. If all you can manage to write in a not-so-good year is a line or two, or you need to focus your letter on a topic that is actually fun to write about, that’s absolutely just fine.

You might actually have written the most memorable letter that someone read that year.