First of all, I have a letter writing binder. In this binder I keep my excel spreadsheet where I can keep track of when I have written, when each child's birthday is and when I have sent an extra financial gift.
When we get letters from our kids in the mail we read them and then they go into this binder until letter writing day.
Once a month I set aside a block of time (usually 2-3 hours) and just start writing. Needless to say, I rarely write by hand anymore. I come up with a general letter idea and type it out. Then, I go through the letters I've received so I can personalize each one and answer any specific questions my kids may have asked me.
So my general letter might look something like....
Dear.......
Greetings to you from Oregon! How are you? We are doing well here. We have had some lovely sunny, warmer weather and I was able to get my garden ready and plant it this week. Usually we are still experiencing lots of rain during this time of year, so the break from rain and the presence of the sun was a nice surprise.
Sydney and Kayleigh send their love to you. They have enjoyed playing outside much more and love to create their own garden. In our main garden we are growing lettuce, tomatoes, zucchini, corn, broccoli and strawberries. I also love flowers so I have planted many different kinds of flowers this year also.
We hope this letter finds you well. We would love to hear from you soon. We are praying for you and your family. Is there anything specific we can be praying for? May God bless you all.
Love, Jill (and the rest of the family).
Then a personalized letter would look like this....I'll put added text in blue.
Dear Ayon.....
Greetings to you from Oregon! How are you? We are doing well here. Thank you so much for your letters - we received two from you this month. We are always so happy to hear from you because it helps us get to know you better. In your letter you mentioned that you were studying for your annual exam. We were praying that you would be successful. How did you do?
We have had some lovely sunny, warmer weather and I was able to get my garden ready and plant it this week. Usually we are still experiencing lots of rain during this time of year, so the break from rain and the presence of the sun was a nice surprise.
Sydney and Kayleigh send their love to you. They have enjoyed playing outside much more and love to create their own garden. In our main garden we are growing lettuce, tomatoes, zucchini, corn, broccoli and strawberries. I also love flowers so I have planted many different kinds of flowers this year also.
Thank you for sharing your favorite Bible verse with us. Have you memorized it? We will work on memorizing it and will think of you every time we say it.
We hope this letter finds you well. We would love to hear from you soon. We are praying for you and your family. Is there anything specific we can be praying for? May God bless you all.
Love, Jill (and the rest of the family).
Of course every letter varies, but this gives you a general idea. I send the generic letter to all the kids who have not written us that month without altering it much. It's usually just some information of what we've been up to with a Bible verse and some words of encouragement. All I have to do for each one is change who it's addressed to and then print it out. Then it really doesn't take much time to personalize the other letters.
My only exceptions to this are the LDP students I write to. Generally I write to them completely separately and usually at a different time.
So this is the method I've been using for the past couple years and it's helped me streamline the letter writing process.
I'm always looking for ways to improve, so if you have suggestions or ideas, please take a moment to share them with us.
