Seasonal Newsletters

Animated Christmas tree

I started sending Christmas letters as a reaction to Canada Post’s strike just before Christmas in 1997. Previously, I only included letters to a very few overseas correspondents, and they were all individually written. Over two decades later, this Christmas letter thing has taken on a life of its own, and it certainly chronicles my life (to a certain degree).

Starting in 2022, I’m referring to these missives as Seasonal Newsletters – I really don’t have much “Christmas” spirit since I’m a non-believer. That said, I’m a big believer in keeping in touch with people I care about, so the tradition continues!

Clicking on the left-most link for each year takes you to a web page with a Christmas card and links to my Christmas letter and photos. The middle link takes you directly to my Christmas letter – 2011 and earlier are PDFs, 2012 and later are web pages. The right link takes you directly to my online galleries for Christmas photos taken in our home and around our neighbourhood.

Santa and his reindeer – a little Flash animation from the ICQ folks has proven to be very popular over the years! If you would like to play this on your computer, please right click on this link to download the Flash file to your computer, then follow the instructions below. I hope you continue to have fun clicking on these Christmas characters!

Playing Flash on desktop computers by clicking from within web browsers is no longer allowed due to security issues and no support by Adobe. The solution is to install the SWF File Player on your Windows computer or the Elmedia Player for your Mac computer (note special instructions for M1 computers), which will allow you to play your own downloaded copy of this little animation.

The above video doesn’t require any work to play – just click on it. If you want to interact with the animation, please follow the instructions given.

Please note: I prefer to send donations to my favourite charities in place of spending money on greeting cards and postage. I encourage you to do the same – spend less on cards and postage, more on people!

Operation Eyesight, SeedChange (formerly USC Canada) and MARS Wildlife Rescue

2 thoughts on “Seasonal Newsletters”

  1. Dear Joe
    My wife, Shirley, and I continue to enjoy your ‘Merry Christmas’ reindeer – we laugh at it every year.
    I have forwarded it to a friend of mine who has just had a triple by-pass operation and is a little bit down at the moment. I’m sure it will cheer him up (we both sing in a local choir0.
    Do hope you have a very happy and blessed Christmas.
    With every good wish
    Tony Fry

    Reply

    1. It’s great to hear others also have fun with this little animation!

      Best wishes to your family and especially to your friend.

      Joe

      Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.