RELATED: Photos from the "P.S. I Love You" luncheon

Actress Hilary Swank is writing all her Christmas cards — about 75 — by hand.

"I love writing letters. It's a lost art," she said yesterday during a luncheon at Brasserie Ruhlmann to promote her new film "P.S. I Love You," which opens on the Friday before Christmas.

Letter writing features prominently in "P.S. I Love You" (Warner Bros.), which is directed by New Yorker Richard LaGravenese and based on a book by 25-year-old Dubliner Cecelia Ahern. Ms. Swank plays a grieving woman who finds her way through the letters her deceased husband has left behind. Lisa Kudrow and Dean Winters play Ms. Swank's friends, who help her carry out the instructions in the messages.

"The letters aren't about helping her remember him," Ms. Kudrow said before greeting Ms. Swank with a hug. "It's really him trying to help her remember herself, so she can survive his passing."

Mr. Winters is a big letter writer, but he doesn't do Christmas cards, he said as a waiter leaned in to offer a chocolate dessert (he passed). Instead, he writes letters on plain stationery to a small number of people with whom he feels he needs to get in touch. "Every year it's a different combination of friends, family, maybe someone I just met yesterday," Mr. Winters said. "Letter writing is very powerful."

So are free lunches. Guests at this one, organized by Peggy Siegal, included Fern Mallis, Jill Roosevelt, Bronson Van Wyck, Jean Doumanian, Adelina Wong Ettelson, Sandy Hill, Coco and Arie Kopelman, and Mariska Hargitay, who showed off photos of her son stored on her iPhone.

Musician Fills Joe's Pub With Songs, Gifts

RELATED: Photos from Mike Errico's Annual Holiday Show

The musical highlights of Mike Errico's holiday shows at Joe's Pub on Tuesday were songs from his new CD "All In," especially "OK to Go," which manages to be spare, truthful, and witty on the subject of heartbreak. Mr. Errico told the audience the title of the song originates from the film "Contact."

The non-musical highlight of the shows was his distribution of gifts to the audience. He called them "holiday omens" and suggested they will have personal significance to the recipients. I received a five-and-dime plastic-wrapped artist's apron.

agordon@nysun.com