Holiday Traditions #4– Christmas Cards

I  LOVE getting Christmas letters! I do understand that email is quicker and that you generally know how your close friends are doing, but I love the tradition of getting a Christmas Card/Letter in the mail! And until the postage doubles, I think I will still be that old soul who who enjoys sending and receiving mail. I think having a tangible Christmas card to hold in my hand shows me that someone cares. I love reading about people’s years – things that perhaps I didn’t know.  And then there are the people that I’ve known for what seems like forever, but that don’t live nearby anymore. This is the time of year that we actually reconnect and find out how one another is doing!

So it should come as no surprise to you that I actually enjoy writing our Christmas letter too! I like reflecting back on our year and making sure we were intentional enough with the time we had. I love seeing how the kids have grown and changed from year to year too! 

As you may or may not know, my parents were missionaries. So my Mom wrote a lot of prayer letters over the years. And although my Mom wrote beautifully and tried to keep them interesting, to me they were always a bunch of words on a page that I would have never read. So when it comes to writing our Christmas letter, it will never be boring words that are easy to just glance through! Every year I try to come up with a new way to put on paper what we did & who we were the previous year. To give you an idea, here are the last five Christmas letters I wrote:

• Word find


• Cross word puzzle


• Scrapbook looking letter with descriptions using the letters of our names


• Recipe (both one of our favorites to eat & then our year written up like a recipe)


• 12 Days of our family (2 teeth Minnie had at Christmas time, 10 times we went to the zoo, etc.)

Now here comes my favorite part!! After Christmas is over we save all the Christmas Pictures (loose or in form of cards) and we pray for them throughout the year! We store them in a small plastic bin. During our morning family devotions we pray for whoever is at the top; then we put it on the bottom of the stack.  It is such a wonderful way for my kids to really visualize who we are praying for and to learn about holding other up in prayer. Plus it is a great reminder to pray for our friends; friends dear enough to send us a Christmas letter/card.



I hope that even if you don’t usually send out a letter or a card that you consider sending at least a few! And if you get Christmas cards, try saving them and using them as a tool in the discipling of your children: teaching them to pray.  If you have a great idea for a Christmas letter I’d LOVE to see or hear about it! Please leave me a comment!