Evergreen Tidings from the Baumgartners KIM CARSON’S INTERVIEW WITH GRETCHEN ANTHONY
I took some time to speak with Gretchen Anthony, author of the novel Evergreen Tidings from the Baumgartners. The story follows an overbearing mother, Violet Baumgartner, who has good intentions in wanting the best for her family and how the world sees it. But over the course of the story it’s revealed, the family is not as perfect as she envisions it to be. The title birthed from the mother’s Christmas letters over the years, always starting with, “Dearest loved ones, far and near Evergreen Tidings from the Baumgartners.”
KIM CARSON: So, first of all, tell me a little bit about your book and what sparked the idea for it. GRETCHEN ANTHONY: Her character actually came to me just growing up over the years and my family would receive hundreds of Christmas cards and letters over the years and I loved reading them. Eventually, I began to recognize that every year there were a few gems in there. Anyone who’s ever received one of these letters knows what I’m talking about, that there are lots of Violet Baumgartners out there.
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December 2021
KC: Gretchen, I get those holiday letters at
Christmastime, and usually enclosed is a Christmas photo of the family with the dog in what looks like a Hallmark moment. But what I’m wondering, is some of these letters are great. They’re a full page of text on pretty holiday stationery, while other letters go on and on for two, sometimes three pages. Do you have any tips on writing a good holiday letter?
GA: Oh, I hope so. I write a letter every year.
Single page. I have a rule. I call it the single page, single glass rule. Don’t write anything longer than it takes you to get through a single glass of wine or a beer or a Diet Coke, whatever your pleasure, right? If you’re working your way into your second glass and you’re still writing, you’ve gone way too long. Every year, we get a letter that’s front and back and in columns. I love their family dearly but that’s too much.
KC: Yes. It makes it difficult to read. Those
letters I get halfway through and just stop. I look at the family photo, smile and move on to the next letter. Where should the letter writer start? Help me out here?
GA: I think, “What have we done this year?”
We’re so prone in our busy life to think in terms of accomplishments, to-do lists and that’s sort of where we start and that’s fine.
We start with where we went on vacation, the sports our kids play, and all the places that we have to drive for car pool, and the things that we do at work. And that’s a great starting point except life isn’t, hopefully, lived in a to-do list. It’s really a series of moments connected together. What you want to do is really take it to the next level and make it not about the list, but about the moments.
KC: Is it okay to not make everything sound so perfect? Because I enjoy the funny stories, “Bobby slid into home base and broke his arm but the team won.”
GA: Oh, absolutely. The best letters sound like
you’re talking to your best friend on the phone. Yes, they should be authentic. They should sound like you. They don’t even have to be extensive. We got a letter one year that was just the story of our friend’s bear encounter that summer. They had gone camping, and they thought they were these great outdoors people, and they were hiking, and they were having a great time. But they were completely done in by this little baby black bear, and it was hysterical. If you want to look at it as a moral of the story, they were like, “We’re not as cool as we thought we were.” Think about it as the art of connecting with other people. It shouldn’t look and sound like a game of out-doing each other.
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