Ideas for Creative Christmas Letters

If you struggle with your Christmas letters every year and dread the thought of even writing them, then maybe you should look at other ways of creating the annual holiday "letter."

Who says it should be a letter anyway? Some people aren't great writers, but can be creative in many other ways.

So break out of the mold and give your readers something new this year. Here are some ideas for creative Christmas letters to get you started.

You don't need to write lengthy prose to tell people about your year. Give them a little pop quiz. For instance, can they guess:

- How many dresses your daughter looked at before finally choosing one for the prom?
- How many baby rattles you received at the baby shower?
- What color you finally decided to paint the kitchen after looking at way too many paint swatches?
- What your mother-in-law exclaimed when she saw the new kitchen color?
- What funny expression your child always says!

Be creative! You'll have fun coming up with the questions and your readers will have fun guessing the right answers.

Top 10 reasons to write a top 10 list instead of a Christmas letter.

1. You only have to write one sentence for each number (but, of course, you can write more). That keeps it short!

2. You don't have to worry about making a smooth transition from talking about your son's first day in kindergarten to discussing your embarrassing moment at the Fourth of July party.

3. No one expects top 10 lists to read as well as a bestselling novel.

4. You have enough numbers to mention something about everyone in the family, but not so many that you'll run out of things to write.

5. You'll have plenty of room on your letterhead to include photos illustrating highlights on the list.

6. It will be easy and quick for your readers to digest.

7. It will be easy and quick for you to write. (You can even get do it online at Shutterfly and let them print your top 10 list on a photo greeting card like the one shown here.)

8. Your family and friends will think you're brilliant for coming up with such a novel idea for your Christmas letter.

9. Lists are a time-honored Christmas tradition. If it's good enough for St. Nick, it's good enough for you!

10. Everyone loves top 10 lists!

If you enjoy writing and are simply bored of the same old Dear-family-and- friends-this-is-what-happened-to-us-this-year format, try weaving your personal details into a story.

Create a short story featuring Santa, an elf, the Grinch or some other Christmas character, and have your characters tell the character about your year. You can get ideas for short Christmas letter stories at Christmas Letter Tips.com.

Forget 20th century paper and envelopes! You can create a digital Christmas letter with online services such as Smilebox and Slideroll. These services make it easy to create photo slide shows with your own original text. The digital "letter" can then be emailed or added to a blog or website. Or, if you're still tied to snail mail and want to be sure your friends and family have something in your mailbox, you can print your masterpiece from Smilebox or burn it to DVD on Slideroll and mail it out the traditional way.