Column: Sara Aeikens, Creative Connections

On a global Christmas wish list including less hunger, poverty and conflict, writing and receiving Christmas letters would not top my priority list.

However, when it comes to improving relationships and furthering family legacy, I believe Christmas letters could have long-range importance.

While informally surveying friends on their opinions about annual Christmas letters, several viewpoints popped up numerous times.

1. They like them a lot.

2. They don’t like the brag sheet with glowing reports.

3. They do want to hear the human heartfelt messages.

I recently read a newspaper article about how historical museums are beginning to collect Christmas articles as legacy artifacts. In other words, our yearly summaries may be the only written records family’s cherish enough to pass on to their offspring for historical recordings. Some writers simply keep them in safe places in a three-ring binder.

When our first Christmas mail of the year arrived, disappointment crept in, not because it came so early on the day before Thanksgiving, but because even though I enjoy photographs of relatives, with only first names included, I miss details of whose children belong to whom and other pertinent messages about family. The next holiday card came with two pages, including values. I enjoy all the sequences annually shared by my mailbox friend.

This season, our Christmas letter reads much like last year’s, fitting on a single page.

It covers trips to visit my mother in her last year of life and gatherings to honor her life.

It notes our various volunteer activities and I mention a bridge brick donation project, band, clarinet, cars and a carport. I write about our son, about three family reunions of branches of my family, and a 50th high school class reunion.

What I wrote differently this year because of the process of preparing for this column, turned out to be a short values message about what is important in my life that I’d also like to be a legacy for the next generation. Here it is, with flaws included:

Foremost in our thoughts,

That you and your loved ones connect with each other-

If not with your presence, then with your essence-

Deep within your hearts.

As I touch the edge of age seventy,

It seems there is no more important message

Than the one of Christmas.

That of forgiveness and love.

Daily I feel the sadness of conflicts at the global level

Of blaming and separation and then find it close to home,

In our own community, the same patterns that keep us apart.

So my vision is that we may make small significant connections,

To touch those in our miniature worlds & make a cherished difference.

May you write Christmas in your own words, your own way, centered in your heart.

Sara Aeikens resides in Albert Lea. Her e-mail address is aeikensara@hotmail.com.