Yuletide Family

Once a month, I write to you — properly, in my own hand, on Christmas stationery I've chosen with care. There's something about a real letter that a screen can't quite replicate: the weight of the envelope in your hand, the small ritual of opening it slowly, knowing someone sat down and thought of you while everything else moved on without you.

Inside, a letter that's really a catch-up between friends: what I've been up to, something Christmassy I've noticed or made, a little of what's coming in the weeks ahead — always with an eye on the Christmas still to come, whatever month it is.

And there's always something more tucked in alongside it. What, exactly, I won't say — it changes every time, and half the joy is not knowing until it's in your hands.
No two letters arrive quite the same way. In a world of notifications and next-day everything, that's rather the point.