Holiday form letters from "The Bannisters"

I was listening to a podcast recently (The Slate Culture Gabfest) in which one of the topics of discussion was Christmas cards and the Christmas form letter from the "perfect family." It stirred up memories of the Christmas form letters my Grandma C. received every year from an old college friend and her family. For the sake of their anonymity--though I highly doubt they will ever come across this humble blog--I'll call them the Bannister's. Let's just say they had "done well for themselves" in life.

Here is a rough approximation of one of the Bannister's holiday form letters:

"Dear Friends,

"Yet another whirlwind year for the Bannister clan. It began in January when Tom and Muffy took the children to Switzerland for a lovely skiing vacation. Ted and I were delighted to be able to accompany them. Long days on the slopes followed by shopping in Zurich or evenings sipping hot cocoa at the fireplace of the mountain lodge. It was a most splendid time for all.

"In the late spring, Eliza finished her studies at the Sorbonne, and it was lovely to fly into Paris for all the pomp and circumstance, but no sooner did we arrive in Paris then we had to jet off to New Haven for Jeffrey's graduation from Yale. Jeff was class valedictorian and will soon be moving to Manhattan to work for Morgan Stanley.

"Ted and I and the extended family enjoyed a most delightful summer vacation at Club Med, where Jennifer announced her engagement to her beau Robert, who just recently received his law degree from Princeton and will be joining his father in the family practice.

"Wishing you all a most Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,

The Bannisters"

This re-creation is only a slight exaggeration of the real thing.

Not only did we receive the letter, but there were always and additional few pages full of photos featuring healthy, well-tanned, (mostly) beautiful people enjoying all the activities mentioned in the letter.

My mom, dad, aunt, uncle, and cousins (who drove down to Detroit from the Upper Peninsula to visit my grandma and us) would read the Holiday letter with a combination of laughter, revulsion, and just a little jealousy--but mostly laughter. It was impossible for me to imagine a life so perfect, and hard to believe that these people were somehow in our social orbit.

Looking back at it now, it seems so long ago that my grandma received those letters. When my grandma died, so did our ties to the "Bannister" family and so did those Holiday form letters. I have no idea what the "Bannisters" are doing now and whether they continue to live such privileged lives. In a strange way, I miss the days of reading those Holiday form letters and laughing about them with my cousins.