CAROLYN HAX

Nevertheless, I don't want to hide that stuff from people, so I try to make up for it by including embarrassing things about us in our Christmas letter. Like how I forgot my running shoes when traveling to an out-of-state half-marathon, or how we had to go to court because we got fined for not mowing our lawn for three weeks last summer.

Now I wonder if my attempts at self-deprecating humor don't prompt even more eye-rolling than the straight-up facts do on their own. Say it ain't so, please!

Christmas Letter

Dear Carolyn:

I got a letter once from a friend who had recently had her first child. It was written from the child's perspective and contained a month-by-month play of what the kid did that year. I love my friend, and her kid, but my eyes glazed over by, "On August so-and-so, I got my first tooth, and tried strained peas."

Christmas Letters

Um. When you don't tell us about your trips and your marathons? That doesn't mean you "hide" them from us. It means you made an effort to calculate what your friends and family might actually find interesting, and you chose to exclude certain things.

People want insights, not datebook items. Accomplishments sometimes count as insights, but not all of them. "Attempts" at self-deprecating humor, likewise, have to rise to the insight level if you don't want them to set eyes a-rollin'. A big trip plus a consequent non-mowing fine, as a pair, would say a lot about your life. Forgetting your running shoes, not so much.

Consciously downplaying your perfect lives so we mortals don't get jealous? Transparent.

This is supposed to be an attempt to demystify the successful end-of-year letter, but now I just feel mean.

Back to the subject tomorrow.