Chapin couple chronicles family’s life through Christmas letters
When Chapin residents Ken and Donna Benson lived in upstate New York, they decided to take their two sons to Onondaga Lake Park for a picnic.
Little did the couple know they chose to have an intimate family picnic on the day of the park’s regatta – which was attended by 11,000 people.
“The people just kept coming and coming and coming,” Donna said.
With all of the crowd’s hustle and bustle, the couple’s youngest son, Timothy, was separated from his parents. Ken and Donna quickly found him standing with a police officer.
“When Ken approached him, the officer looked at Timothy and asked him if this was his father,” Donna said. “Timothy looked at him and looked back at the officer and said, ‘No.’ ”
Most likely, this is a story the entire Benson family would remember for years to come. However, details such as the year or exact location might have gotten fuzzy ... if it weren’t for the Benson family Christmas letter and its summary of the family’s events each year.
Ken and Donna started their family Christmas letter the year the two were married – 1964. That year, the couple moved from Illinois to Rhode Island and left so many friends behind they decided it was easier to write a Christmas letter than to write the same notes in multiple cards. At the time, the two didn’t intentionally set out to write an annual letter – it was just something they kept up year after year.
It wasn’t until Christmas 2014 the two realized they had written and sent out a Christmas letter each of the 50 years they had been married.
“When we realized we had written one every year for 50 years, we went through the files to see if we had a copy of all of them, and we did – all except one of them,” Ken said. “Donna keeps a yearly diary, so she went back to that year and took notes again and we recreated a letter of what happened that year.”
After re-reading all of the letters, the couple realized they didn’t just have copies of holiday happenings, they had a treasure of family history that didn’t exist elsewhere.
“We didn’t think of it that way, but as we have gotten older we gained a new perspective of what we were writing,” said Ken, who writes the letter each year based on notes of events and happenings compiled by Donna.
“We’d forgotten so many things,” Donna said. “You’ve got vacations, family births, family deaths. You forget so much – so many of the details. We’ve moved eight times, so we forget what year did we live here and when did we live there? The letters document it all and bring it all back to life.”
So, just before Christmas last year, the couple compiled copies of all of the letters and made a book of them they entitled Fifty Years of Benson Family History – a gift they presented to their two sons and their six grandchildren.
“There is a special joy in receiving a gift you don’t have on any wish list, you don’t expect and you don’t know you want,” said the couple’s son, Kevin Benson, who lives in Irmo with his wife, Laura, and their four kids. “Opening this book of family Christmas letters was one of these gifts. I never expected it to mean as much as it has. Each letter is a labor of love and shares the joys and sorrows of my past, times and experiences I’ve forgotten but are precious intangibles who have made me who I am. They’ve helped give me a richer sense of my growing-up years.”
Kevin’s brother, Tim, was equally impressed.
“Here, in one place, was a wonderful story of our family’s history,” said Tim, who lives in Boston with his wife, Ericka, and their two children. “It was particularly special to have access to the Christmas letters from the early years. And, it’s a great way to actually connect my memories with the actual years they happened.”
Over the years, the look of the letter has changed, going from one typed out on a typewriter to one created on a computer with photos added in. Some are one page; others are three, depending on the year, Donna said. The voice of the letter changed at times, too, through the years. The first year, Ken wrote the letter from the perspective of the house that the newly married couple moved into. Following the birth of Kevin and Tim, the letter was written as if from their perspective, such as this one from 1967:
“One trip we took was very funny to me, although Daddy didn’t laugh too much. We stopped at a place called Carters. Mommy bought some clothes for me including a bathing suit and matching shirt. As we drive towards home, Mommy was explaining to Daddy what good buys these were. I reached over and grabbed the swimming suit and shirt. Mommy smiled. I threw the clothes out the window. Mommy cried. Daddy looked into the rear view mirror and just shook his head. Finally we stopped. I was thirsty anyway and happy for the rest. Meanwhile Daddy walked back to a bridge where I threw the clothes out. (It just happened to be on the main by-pass around Boston.) No one said much after that .... but I noticed that Mommy had her window rolled up tight even though it had been down during all the rest of the trip.”
One thing that hasn’t changed is the close of the letter.
“Our letters always ended with the real meaning of Christmas being mentioned,” Donna said.
For example, in 1989, the letter closes: “This year we have passed through some troubled waters but thank the Lord for His sustaining strength. We know that nothing comes to us which doesn’t pass through His hands. We praise Him for His grace. We pray that this Christmas season you will all know the peace that only He can bring.”
Though Kevin and Tim and their wives at one time tried to keep the Benson family Christmas letter tradition alive in their own families, like most families of today they found it very time-consuming and difficult to maintain.
“Laura and I continued the tradition for a number of years. We really had fun with it and brought our own perspective and creativity to those letters – including choosing our books of the year and music album of the year,” Kevin said. “However, once we had our fourth child and Laura was in the throes of being a mom and home-schooling multiple children, this practice fell by the wayside. At some level I miss it. I think the rise of social media and sharing many of these moments throughout the year with friends and family on sites like Facebook have replaced this practice for me at some level, but I’m missing a more comprehensive way of bringing these vignettes from my life together in one place and choosing memories which are woven together into a continuous family narrative instead of sound bites.”
Ken and Donna acknowledge the art of Christmas letter writing is dying in the age of families constantly posting their family events and trips through social media all year. The two of them, however, will continue to stick with the tried-and-true format they have worked with for more than 50 years.
“Our grandchildren may not realize now what a treasure they have in these letters, but one day they will,” Donna said. “In years to come, they’ll look and see more and more of what their dad did when he was little – what he did in school and what activities he did outside – because everything is documented. One day, when Ken and I pass on, and we aren’t here to tell the stories, they’ll still have these letters and they’ll realize what a treasure they hold.”
Ken Benson on The Benson Family Christmas Letter Writing Process
Donna prepares notes from her diary covering the year. I read through them several times looking for a theme to jump out at me. I look at the pictures we’ve collected for the year and seek a theme from them.
I procrastinate.
One day I’ll sit down at the computer and start. Sometimes it’s a false start. I’ll try another time looking for a twist to make it interesting.
I slug out the first lines. Add a picture. Write some more and then it begins to happen – things begin to gel.
I type and collect common ideas. If I tire at this sitting, I’ll print out the partially completed portion of the letter with pictures embedded. This becomes an encouragement, and I see I’m making progress.
I bounce the fragile beginning off Donna. She usually encourages me and might say ‘don’t forget so and so.’
Sometimes I’ve written what happened each month. Often we use a three-column letter, front and back. But, you can find two-column and full-page approaches.
Starting with a three-column newspaper approach kind of puts a limit to the length and gives the feeling of progress as the columns get filled. Within a few days, I’ll return to the task and type into the night, always adding pictures. I become excited with the story and my dry humor lines keep me happy at the task.
After a blitz night, I will print out the letter and place it in the kitchen so Donna will read it first thing. We agree on changes, I make them, we proof read again. We edit, changes are made and, yea, – another Christmas letter has been born.
This story was originally published December 23, 2015 at 10:52 AM.