It's The (Most Wonderful) Time of the Year Again…

… when I sit down and write our annual letter. I actually got the idea from Auntie Pesing when she sent me their 2003 letter then. I thought it was a good idea to recall and summarize the key highlights of the past year - if not for our friends and family, then for us.

(Somehow, it does remind me of my past corporate life where we had year-in-review for the company, groups and individuals. Those were not necessarily easy or enjoyable times specially if goals were not met for the period. )

As for "our life" newsletter, I really enjoy the writing and adding the personal note, even if sometimes the news is not necessarily all good news. I can't really say the same for the rest of the process (formatting into the stationary, printing, stuffing, labelling, stamping, etc.) It just takes up a lot of time! There must be a simpler way to do it!  

So I've been doing this since 2003 - so that's 5 years now and here's some of my thoughts:

• Today with this blog, the annual newsletter-writing is even easier because the details of what has happened to us within the year has already been written as it happened (or at least within week or 2, give and take). No need to rely on memory to recall what happened.
  
• The envelope preparation has evolved from handwriting all addresses (both return and recipient address) to attaching ready-made return address labels and pre-printed recipient labels. I think the next level is printing both return and recipient addresses on the envelopes themselves.
  
• Buying stationaries after Christmas makes the cost of the best-looking paper 75% less! That is for next year, of course.
  
• I analysed our distribution list and less than 25% do NOT have emails. Makes me wonder if they should be the only ones I send the snail mail newsletter next year… and the rest sent through email. I hope not to do bulk email though as I would lose the opportunity to add the "personal" note.
  

So for those of you who do receive our snail mail newsletter, do you prefer to receive it in email?