Originally published by Family Circle magazine, January 20, 2004

Try to Remember

By Jennifer Nicholson Graham

Like a lot of women, I spend much time and energy trying to create "the perfect Christmas" for my family. I haven't achieved it yet, but if I ever do, it will be only because of my annual Christmas letter ­ not a photocopied missive to family and friends, but the very private letter I write myself every year. It all started, as self-improvement efforts do, because of a personal deficiency: in my case, my memory. I have none. Without a list or Post-It Notes to prod me, groceries go unbought, anniversaries are ignored, and errands are not run. I forget things on an hourly basis, and the chance of retaining non-essential information for a year is pretty much nil.

So 10 years ago, after I discovered a pile of wrapped gifts still in a closet --- on Dec. 28 ­ I sat down with pen and paper and composed "A Letter to Me, Upon How To Improve Next Year's Christmas."

The hurriedly written letter was two pages of to-do's: "Decorate more outside," I wrote. "White lights on crabapple and redbud trees?" I suggested garlands (at the very least, bows) for the fence. "Need next year: more wrapping paper, cellophane, a gold paintbrush to write tags. Buy more eggnog. More Irish coffee! Tiny white lights are virtually impossible to find after December first; buy early!" I noted what worked ­ scheduling a Dec. 23 haircut weeks in advance ­ and what didn't: insisting on midnight Mass with an 11-month-old in the house.

Then I put the letter in an envelope, sealed it, and tucked it away until the following Thanksgiving, when I opened it apprehensively, not remembering what was inside. But I was enchanted by what I found, and strangely touched by the back-to-the-future communication between the Jen of 1993 and the Jen of 1994. Thus began a tradition that has demonstrably improved each subsequent Christmas. But soon I understood what their ultimate purpose would be: creating memories, both beloved and useful, for everyone in the family to treasure

The first few years, the letters were strictly utilitarian, self-conscious to-do lists. "Get scissors sharpened before Dec. 1!" But soon they grew fatter as I began recounting what had happened during the previous 11 months.

There was the move from South Carolina to New York, the first year we ever had visitors at Christmas. I remembered when my daughter learned to walk, when we put an elderly cat to sleep, and when my husband got a better job. One year we threw two Christmas dinner parties in two days. (Please, never again.) Another pregnancy, another baby. Start a Christmas Club account next year! And who runs out of vanilla on Christmas Eve?

The stationery changed, indicating that we moved nine times in our 12-year marriage. Some of the wrinkled envelopes bear long-abandoned return addresses, and each November, I look at them fondly, remembering 501 Stratton Drive or 4505 Briarfield Road, temporary homes I might have otherwise forgotten.

The Christmas season doesn't end officially for me until I write that year's letter and add it to the stack, tied with red and green grosgrain ribbons. The next year's holiday season begins in mid-November, when I open the previous year's letter and for old time's sake, reread all the others. This is beginning to take on the trappings of ceremony, and it's beginning to take some time.

I recently showed them to my eldest daughter ­ she's 9 ­ and tried to explain what they were, and that they would be hers one day. "Cool," she said, without looking. "Do you know where my Game Boy is?"

The letters ­ and the flawless holidays they're supposed to inspire ­ still aren't perfect. Sometimes I write the same things year after year: "Get all gifts wrapped before Christmas Eve!" But maybe one year in the future, I'll get everything right, and I will find myself with enough money, time and boxwood garland to make our family's Christmas perfect.

Or maybe one day, flipping through faded envelopes, my family will realize that each Christmas was perfect enough ­ that what mattered was not how sharp the scissors were, nor how plentiful the Irish coffee, but the memories that the day gave, and still keeps giving.