I'll start with I play on PC and I don't use any mods. I started a new character for the event, a single female living in Willow Creek. I was able to do the event through the planting of the flowers ...
Ideas
I got the first newsletter related task and progressed. i completed Assistant to the Grim Reaper but the other task says its waiting on the newsletter. This was a new household. I tried deleting and replacing the mailbox. (im not even seeing the mailman if they even come because my character is in high school and i travel with her, I am not getting any other mail) I placed another family to try, one that has various ages to try having the child get the mail as someone suggested. still no mailman so far. I do not use mods and i repaired the game and tried again, still no newsletter.
Im not sure if this is related, but because it was a new character, i got spammed with the "random" tasks like open the skill panel, learn a creative skill ect while this grim reaper event task was there.
I really hope this is fixed BEFORE week one is over. Those of us that are dedicated enough to work on this right away deserve that! We dont know that we will be able to make up the XP lost from this in a later week if those tasks are even working either.
Please EA, give us a work around, a solution or patch it!