.. But, every year at Christmas it comes up because of Christmas cards. I'd really like to send out a Christmas letter with our cards because we live in an entirely different state than all our family and most of our friends. But, in said letter, I feel like I would have to leave out anything school-related which, let's face it, is a huge chunk of what life is about when you've got kids. I can't even metnion which grade my kids are in since my DD is two years ahead of age and my DS is one year ahead, and this would be construed as bragging. So, each year we just put in pictures of my kids with a little label stating their ages and don't include a letter. I sure love reading other people's letters, though!
Ugh - I struggle with letters too! We used to include a short letter with our x-mas cards (short enough to be glued on the back of a photo card), but I just have a hard time writing about what our kids are doing.
I just got a letter from someone saying their homeschooled 5 year old started 1st grade curriculum over the summer. I know this family personally, and their 5 year old is not a reader yet and they are using a packaged Waldorf curriculum. Why do I find this irritating? Probably because I'm constantly filtering what I report about my son in particular, and I live in this area with plenty of competitive parents. That is just not me. And it actually is part of the reason it's just easier to HS. I can't imagine what kind of reaction I'd get if I said our 3rd grader was ramping up to start high school math. I've noticed even more acutely lately people don't really "get" it unless they're living it too.
As a fun compromise this year (and to appease out of town relatives who complain I haven't done a letter for a couple years), we did a photo card this year of some travels and events. It has 8 pictures on a 5x7 (from shutterfly.com) and I just described the pictures and said where our next travels will take us. I don't even know if everyone we send cards to is aware we are homeschooling, which would be another interesting bomb to drop in an x-mas letter for some older aunts and uncles!
