Christmas Cards and Why Send Them

Christmas cards have been a standing tradition in my house for as long as I can remember! I have always loved sending cards and receiving them as well. I think that was instilled upon me by my Mother. She was the all time decorator and creator of many festivities. She out did herself on each and every holiday, but Christmas by far was her high gear! And Christmas at our house seemed to last almost from before Thanksgiving until the middle of January when the last decoration came down!

Christmas began the day after Thanksgiving with the decorations and lights and turning the scene from a Pilgrim dinner to the birth of our Lord. Thanksgiving brought the traditional Christmas parade and after it began our Christmas holiday shopping for gifts and cards and new decor. We would go shopping and see the beautiful decorations in the store fronts and the window shopping was the biggest thrill! Seeing all the sparkle of the season in the store fronts just made the season pretty special.

When I left home one of the things I took with was notes of the family and friends address book. Because the holiday season was also a time to reflect, it was all about family and friends. As I aged, the parties became less and when Mom and Dad passed it suddenly dawned on me that it was the end of a beautiful era. Christmas used to be more about family and literally staying in touch. Suddenly and for many, the new age of technology and email changed how we hugged.

It is funny, as a kid, I always would make fun of the Christmas form letter many of my parents friends included and what I laughed at as a kid, now I see it in another light. It has become part of my own tradition to put that "dreaded" newsy letter aka the brag or rag sheet in the card!

I have done it for years now and I wonder how many of the family and friends have actually saved those letters because now looking back, that letter is a piece of jeweled family history that give us those grand moments in time! We heard things like that Aunt Lucy or sister Sara had a baby and the nephew made 10 points in the football season or Sally or maybe brother John was deathly ill. The trivia of our lives!

I send nearly 100 greeting cards for Christmas and as I age another thing has become important to me is that warm fuzzy feeling I get when I stuff the envelopes and that same warm fuzzy feeling when I receive a card. It's funny how the cards now have become the family reunions and those moments in time where we used to hug and be in the presence of each other are slowly vanishing the older we get. And what we do end up cherishing is the feel of the card in our very hand. We can grab it and hold it to our breast as if the sender were right there. Perfumed cards were the best!

I hear people saying how expensive postage has gotten and how out of hand and out of budget that is. And while it is true that in my own time I have seen postage go from a 5c stamp to $.55 as bad as times have gotten for me, when I think of the cost of not keeping in touch, I still manage to send them because to me the cost of a personal note is a priceless memory anymore.

I often buy cards in bulk on the big Christmas sales. That has toned down the cost a lot when times have been tough. I always start to put my return addresses on my next years cards the day after Christmas or as I receive a card. I keep a registry of sorts. It's a binder with those plastic protector sheets and each sheet has my loved ones name and address with their current card.Then as the year goes on I start putting postage on them and stuff them with photos and long about July I start putting their sending addresses on figuring if they do move, there is still plenty of time to catch on the forwarding.

Funny, when you think of the cost of those stamps. Well through the years I have snipped and saved the cancelled stamps from the old envelopes of the old cards received. I have garnered quite a postage stamp collection in that very process. And I suspect with the continued trend to go click and send, the internet will dwindle down the precious stamps that I am collecting in my snail mail in the future, but somewhere in my mounting pile of used postage, there is sure to be lurking a rare collecters stamp. So while we are thinking the cost is just too much to send a card, one day the value of my collection could simply be priceless.

In November, on the first of the month I start with the first names in the alphabet. But before I do I create my brag/rag letter. Throughout the year I take my calender notes of the bigger events that I want to brag about, create my form letter and stuff the letter in with the Christmas card. And so it goes, the cards each get handsigned and stuffed and then I place my sticker to seal them and the cards soon get complete. I do an alphabet letter a day and by the time the 26th of the month has rolled in I am done Then by the day after Thanksgiving, or sometime there about, usually they are all ready to mail in plenty of time before Christmas. I have done it this way for years and it only takes a few minutes a day and turns into a great time to reflect and even say a prayer.

Greeting cards are even further steeped in tradition because it is not only because of why we have Christmas, it is also about love and it is relation to our anticipation of a Savior. It is the keeping in touch that means so much. When you think about it how the virgin Mary, pregnant with God's son came to Bethlehem with Joseph to be in a census and to pay a tax. It is in that very sense with every Christmas card we write, we are sending out a decree of joy for the season as we count our family and friends in sharing that happiness.

And while it seems each year people send Christmas cards less and less, whether the meaning of Christmas has changed for them or because they have gone onto the virtual media, I will continue to send them as I have because I enjoy the tradition.

Looking back, in good times and lean, it seems the leaner times always brought out out the truer meaning of Christmas. And while giving is part of the tradition, receiving is as well. And in lean times I would find myself thumbing through all those cards I received in Christmas' passed, those very same cards became the jewels of Christmas in the future. I would take them and get some paper and cut the old cards to transform them to new. And while this is time consuming, it's also a wonderful way to keep on sending when hard times abound.