Hacking the Christmas letter

I have a confession to make. A few years ago I hacked the concept of the Christmas letter. I conjured up a fictitious family, fabricated their Christmas letter, embellished it with photos I found online, and sent it anonymously to about 50 friends and family from mailboxes outside San Diego. I did all this intentionally to make people stop and wonder.

To sink the hook...each recipient had a customized line in the first few sentences. "If it wasn't for the _____ from _____ I'm not sure we would have made it through the year." The first blank was their last name and the second space was their town. The content of the letter was designed to start slow and burn hotter as it progressed. To this day, only a few people (my own brothers) figured out that I had sent it.

PS. I sent another phony letter out this year, family name: McDooleys.

Christmas isn't about us. I know many of us "know" that... but we all forget it. I'm not against Christmas letters at all, in fact I love the idea of sharing (otherwise this would just be Andy's Twelve Days of Christmas blog). Let's connect... but let's be as real as possible with each other. We are human, we're in an economic meltdown... maybe... just maybe we're in a liiiitle bit better shape than the Halfords.