Those Annual Mass Holiday Greetings

Have you ever gotten a mass holiday greeting, from a friend or family member, or even from a business associate, and found that you were not included? That happened to me at least twice. Obviously if it’s a distant friend of a friend of a friend, it’s not going to be all that annoying. But if it’s someone that you think should have remembered you, it can be very painful. In business, if someone is summarizing the highlights of their business year and you thought you were one of those highlights but your view is not shared, that is also disappointing. So what do you do? Ignore it? Say something and risk being criticized as the mass holiday summary writer defends his or her “take” on the year as an opinion that is personal and therefore beyond reproach. A few years ago, I had the courage to tell an extended family member that I felt slighted by my omission. I didn’t hear anything about that comment. This year, I mentioned to a business associate that I felt hurt that I wasn’t noted in his year of highlights. He was definitely not grateful for my honesty although, after a couple of heated e-mails back and forth, he reconsidered his overreaction and realized that I had a right to express my feelings. I don’t know if he’ll include me in next year’s roundup but that relative I told you about? I recently received her two page roundup of last year’s top events and, guess what, I was included. “I made the cut,” I said to my husband after I read the holiday greeting. And it felt good to be included.

Have you ever sent, or received, a holiday mass greeting? What was the experience like? Do you recommend doing it? I welcome hearing from you about your experiences with this unique approach to trying to get a lot of the same information out to lots of different people in as efficient a way as possible.