||| BY LIN MCNULTY, theORCASONIAN EDITOR |||
Remember when you would check your mailbox (exterior, metal thing) for your yearly dose of Christmas greetings from friends and family? You’d open all the envelopes that arrived and display their contents on the fireplace mantel, a doorway, or a wall. It was the accepted method. If they had been appropriately displayed throughout the season, then that would justify throwing them away in January. That was pretty much the life cycle.
There may be more of you that remember receiving such cards, rather than sending such cards. That’s where I’ve been for the last many decades. I just never got into the sending part.
I have a friend, however, who seemingly without exception has sent me (and, I assume countless others) a Christmas card each year since we met in college back in the last century. Her early cards related the events of her year, chronicling births, vacation trips, deaths, her updates on which country her family had been living in the past year. All of it. It was a great way to keep up to date.
Lately, the wordy and welcome newsletters have not accompanied her seasonal greetings. That’s OK. I understand. But the cards themselves have continued for more than 50 years.
This year, she sent another card, through the U.S. mail, of course, with a little handwritten notation that she had somehow noticed over the years that I was not fully participating in the ‘exchange’ of Christmas cards. I felt embarrassed (at least a little bit) and could see that there was only one way to make up for over 50 years of non-participation. So I sent her two packs each of 36 Christmas cards, with an accompanying note: “This should cover me for a few years. Merry Christmas!” That’s 70 cards which I am sure will more than make up for my failure.
Oh, and here’s your heartfelt obligatory greeting. Merry Christmas.
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Beautiful picture by Terry Johnson.
P.S. love the note about the author of this article. Been writing a novel for 20 years. I’ve been not writing one for longer. Somewhere along the line I realized I didn’t have one in me. Can’t write fiction. Can’t write true stories without being sued. Thought about writing “what I know” and claim it’s all fiction. No one would believe it to be true anyway.
Lovely piece about a lovely custom, Lin. I also look forward to those cards, and it seems like there are fewer and fewer these days. I have to confess that I’ve taken to sending mine via email, the advantage being that I can design and photo-collage them myself and I can type rather than hand-write (!), and, most recently, even include musical links. As a compromise with custom, I also try to make them printable, with a “fold here” line. No wonder USPS is going broke! Wishing you and all a digital Christmas!
Until I run out of postage/card money and handwriting scribbles, I will still send cards. It was a wonderful tradition that sadly, like every other personal touch is falling by the wayside.