The Gift of Mail- a tradition of newsletters

Though this is a post from last year- it's that time of year for sending mail.  I just finished our 2015 newsletter and had it printed at FedEx/ Kinkos today.  The envelops are addressed and they are ready to mail.

Who doesn't love getting mail?  Well who doesn't love getting real mail?  Real mail meaning that which doesn't have to do with credit card advertisements, bills, ads and all that junk that fills our mailboxes today.  It feels that sending and receiving genuine paper mail today is becoming a lost art.  In a day of facebook, emails, Facetime and even blogging, "instantaneous" has become the culture.  We are so used to getting the immediate gratification of the click of a button, and so busy with our lives, that we hardly take the time to write a letter to someone we love, or send birthday/ special occasion cards.  Which also means, we are robbed of the joy of receiving those forms of communication and love as well.  If you're like me, I pretty much dread checking our mailbox because I already know the time it will take me to weed through all the junk & bills.  But there are still the faithful few who have not lost this art of sending cards and correspondence- and for those people I am so grateful.

If people are going to send cards, it seems that this is the time of year for it.  Since I was a child, I have loved all the Christmas cards that people have sent to us.  We'd always hang them up on our walls, on display to look at and admire.  And even as an adult, I have continued this tradition in my own home.

Many years ago, I was inspired by a Christmas Newsletter my parents had received from their friends.  It was visually appealing with nice photos, and very informative about the life events of their family over the past year.  I loved it, and decided that I definitely wanted to do that "when I got older and had a family".  I loved how informative they were, and especially loved the photos.  So when I got out of college, I decided I would start then.  Since we'd lived in California until I was 16, and then I spent 2 years in Connecticut and then 4 years of college in Western NY, we had loved ones across the country.  And now that I was out of college, with a new job and living on my own, there was a lot that I could update about my life.  And rather than take 5 minutes to hand write a letter to each person on the list, I could consolidate everything into an awesome newsletter and save my hand from aches.  And so began my journey into the tradition of yearly newsletters.   It's been 10 years since the first annual newsletter, and from what I can tell people still love to get them.

My newsletters evolved from being solely about me, to including details about the Laird, and now lady genevieve has been included the past 2 years.  I am not going to pretend it's an easy task to accomplish.  It does take time, as you must figure out what you want to write about and include each year.  Which involves thinking about what you did over the past 12 months.  One important part is coming up with a Name for your newsletter.  Our newsletter is called: "The N.Y.(Nestlen Yearly) Times".  We also happen to live in NY, so it works both ways.  I begin my newsletter process in October, with brainstorming a list of big updates, like vacation, or buying a house... and then come up with specifics for an article about each person of the family.  I have a MacBook, and use Pages to make my newsletters, but I know there are lots of cool programs out there to accomplish the task.  Photos are as important as the actual written content, so once the articles are written, it's fun to pick out a few photos to highlight the article.  I have always done double sided letters, and never had a problem figuring out how to fill both sides of the letter up with articles and photos (even when I only wrote about my own life).  When the newsletter was just about me, I was able to get very specific about a lot of different parts of that year.  Now that my family has grown, I have to choose my content wisely and include simply the most important stuff.  In the very beginning I would add a favorite recipe to share, or a section of fun facts (like how many miles my very old 1995 Dodge neon currently had on it).

Once the letter is complete, I have discovered the beauty of Kinkos FedEx print center.  I used to go through the hassle of saving my newsletter to an external hard drive and then taking it to the store and using their computer to then print it up.  What a hassle and time waster!  Now I can do all the work at home, upload the newsletter to their website, select all the specific print details (color/ black & white; single vs. double sided; paper weight; number of copies...etc.), pay online, select when to pick them or up or have them shipped.

I have saved a hard copy of each newsletter over the past 11 years, and have a collection of them at this point.  They serve as a wonderful "Year at Glance" to revisit the big events of each year that has passed.  I hope to put them in a notebook for better access down the road.  Be inspired to make your correspondence filled with quality, rather than a quick signature!