If you struggle with your Christmas letters every year and dread the thought of even writing them, then maybe you should look at other ways of creating the annual holiday "letter." Who says it should be a letter anyway? Break out of the mold and give your readers something new this year with ideas for creative Christmas letters.

You don't need to write lengthy prose to tell people about your year. Give them a little pop quiz. Can they guess:

If you enjoy writing and are simply bored of the same old Dear-family-and- friends-this-is-what-happened-to-us-this-year format, try weaving your personal details into a story. Create a short story featuring Santa, an elf, the Grinch or some other Christmas character, and have your characters tell the character about your year. You can get ideas for short Christmas letter stories at Christmas Letter Tips.com.

Top 10 reasons to write a top 10 list instead of a Christmas letter.

1. You only have to write one sentence for each number (but, of course, you can write more). That keeps it short!

Forget 20th century paper and envelopes! You can create a digital Christmas letter with online services such as Smilebox and Slideroll. These services make it easy to create photo slide shows with your own original text. The digital "letter" can then be emailed or added to a blog or website. Or, if you're still tied to snail mail and want to be sure your friends and family have something in your mailbox, you can print your masterpiece from Smilebox or burn it to DVD on Slideroll and mail it out the traditional way.