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Richard Holland's annual holiday letter is pretty standard from year to year: "Here's where we've been and what we've done. There will be something about the children and the grandchildren," said Holland, 66, who lives on the north shore of Lake Ontario with his wife. 

With only one exception, he has drafted and mailed an annual greeting for more than three decades. 

"There was one year I didn't do a letter," Holland said, remembering a time when he was between jobs for an extended stretch. 

His words are always contained to one side of one page of white paper. Palatino font. Text size fluctuates. "If it's been a busy year I'll use a font 11 or maybe 12," he said.

"It's a useful way to stay in touch," said Holland, who isn't active on social media and has friends and family all over the world.

Personal tidings from around the globe — including Holland's 2014 holiday letter — arrive in Fargo, North Dakota, each year where a communications professor eagerly receives them. 

Ann Burnett, who also directs the women and gender studies program at North Dakota State University, collects holiday letters and has for about 15 years and counting. 

The endeavor started as a research project for her students focused on the fast pace of life and relationships. She noticed a frequent use of the word "busy" in year-end letters and quickly settled on holiday letters as a project component. Burnett asked friends and colleagues for redacted copies of their Christmas letters. Over the years, word of her interest has spread and packets of letters arrive sporadically. 

Burnett plans to write a book about holiday letters and how they reflect a changing society — one that celebrates bragging and is increasingly inauthentic. She now has a filing cabinet filled with more than 2,000 letters, mostly from the United States, Canada and England. They're catalogued by year, beginning in the late 1970s.

"These letters are little mini time capsules," Burnett said. "They are cultural artifacts worthy of study.

"I know what I'm reading is very precious to someone," she said. "Sometimes I do laugh." 

Other times, Burnett admits to simply shaking her head. 

Burnett said the archive is evidence of the rise of busyness. She's seeing words like "hectic," "whirlwind" and "frantic" — in addition to "busy" and "very busy" — show up more frequently in the letters. The notes tend to highlight personal achievement, showcase travel and describe major events, as writers anticipated Y2K or shared their reaction to Sept. 11, 2001.

But the year-end letter offers a more subtle purpose beyond simply a synopsis, she said.

"It's the end of the year and a time when people are looking back," she said. "It's really a chance to step back to reflect."

With the holiday season quickly peaking, Burnett said she's eager to expand her letter collection. "I always hope people won't toss them out."

Burnett welcomes holiday letters (the more the merrier) to her attention at: 
Department No. 2310
P.O. Box 6050
Fargo, N.D. 58108

Lifestyle

Ann Arbor Miller

Author

Personal tidings from around the globe arrive in Fargo, North Dakota, each year where a communications professor eagerly receives them. Ann Burnett has collected holiday letters for about 15 years and counting.

Letters deliver annual tidings of joy, busyness

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