Heres an appeal TO SAY SOMETHING when you send out your Christmas and Hanukkah greeting cards. My wifes uncle in Iowa signed Art nothing more to his Christmas card. And he is far from alone.Seems to me that if you value your relatives and friends enough to buy or make a greeting card, address it and slap a 39-cent stamp on it, you could take some time and write a note or share some news or personal comments. It is so sterile to just get a signed name. Of course, newsman that I am, the best course is to thoughtfully write a comprehensive family newsletter. Put meaty information into it, recount your year, tell what family members are doing, reflect on adventures, explain what you are doing in the community or in your hobbies, talk about work and milestones, even comment on the welfare of the nation, about what has been on your mind. And throw in some health reports. I WANT to know. For years, Ann Landers put out her annual fall column lambasting holiday family newsletters, woefully trying to make a case that they are brag sheets, that they can read like a medical chart, that parents dwell totally on their precocious, sterling kids or that most people dont care THAT much about their friends and relatives to spend 10 minutes reading about their vacations to Hawaii and Idaho or the colors of the bridesmaids dresses.Baloney. Last years we received a record 59 Christmas newsletters — some chocked full of delicious stories and events, others cryptic and slapped together. One family that has had a number of divorces and remarriages and stepchildren doesnt bother to explain who Amy or Craig or Tom are. Unless you are there with them, its impossible to understand relationships. Some families think they are doing us a favor by writing a tight single paragraph about everyone. Yet, all too often it is vague puff: Mary is enjoying her work. She has a new job and has found it rewarding. She traveled some this year and keep busy in her community work. How about some specifics? Is she in a witness protection program and cant tell more?I started producing a Christmas newsletter in December 1968, at age 22, while I was in Peace Corps training in Toluca, Mexico. I had graduated from college that May and wanted to get a lot of information in one swoop to college friends, relatives and others. Last weekend, I completed our 39th annual Griffiths Christmas Newsletter, capturing the milestones and trivia of our year. It takes up all four sides of a folded 11 by 17-inch sheet (about 4,000 words) with an 8 by 11-inch sheet in the middle with photocopied family photos (front and back). A disclaimer always notes that it is partly written as a one-year chapter of our familys history and deliberately includes things that track our lives. And there are no apologies to those recipients who cannot sit through it all. Last spring, we gave both of our grown children and spouses complete sets of all those newsletters that literally trace their lives from when their mom was pregnant to now when they have their own children. Often, when I need to know what year something happened to us, I can go back to those newsletters in plastic sheeting. We take the time to include a holiday card, along with personal comments directly to each recipient.. Obviously, we dont have to repeat a lot of information because of the newsletter, so it allows us time to focus on our relationship with the recipient through personal thoughts. We send out about 150 cards/newsletters annually, checking the previous years list. As we get older, we see a growing number of recipients who have died from the previous year. But new people come into our lives to replace them. (Oddly, I file away each year’s cards and newsletter with the notion that I will one day pull together the complete set of friends/relatives’ newsletters in kind of their unfolding adventure with life.)The captain of my U.S. Army unit in Lousiaina in 1970, now living in California, sends a card each year. In the early years, there were tidbits of information, but for the last 30 years only Ede and Ron. Ugh!Some people say nothing individual beyond their prepared newsletter. We can live with that. Some opt for greeting cards with one or more family photos no information. Thats not so good. I appeal to folks to take some time to care. Share yourself in words.

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