Christmas Cards

We're well into the swing of the holiday season here in The Valley. While I still have to wrap, make candy, and make stuff for three holiday gatherings, at least my cards are done. 

The ones that get mailed went out last Monday, a full week sooner than last year when I just couldn’t get motivated to get them done. 

This year, we put on some Christmas music and My Sweet Baboo and I sat together and got them done. I think I actually mailed more cards this year than in the past, adding my contribution to the over 2 billion cards mailed each year. I also finished my work cards, sending some via interoffice (shame on me) to our regional offices, and delivering others personally to folks who work in the same building as me. 

MSB does the ‘Baboo and Sue’ cards, I do the ‘Sue and Baboo’ cards and that way we cover all the bases. I have several addresses in my PDA but not all of them, the rest are scribbled on a piece of paper that I’ve been using for years just to do cards. Fortunately we didn’t throw away the phone book, as we both used it to get some of the local addresses – the ones we can drive to, but don’t know how to mail to; I suspect most people have a few of those. One of these days I’ll get all of the addresses updated in the PDA; I say that every year, and it’s not a high priority yet. 

We don’t send pictures or a letter with our cards, it’s just the card with a scribbled holiday greeting and our names. Both of us are non-photogenic - we don’t like having our picture taken. For me, it’s a long-standing dislike going back to when I was a kid, fell off my bike, and scarred my face. Without going into detail, suffice it to say that kids can be mean, and some scars last longer than the visible ones. MSB, on the other hand, has always simply been more comfortable behind the lens than in front of it. 

But we love getting other people’s pictures, seeing kids and pets grow up, and we also enjoy the holiday letters. Some are very straight-forward, simply recapping the major events of the year; others manage to fit a year’s worth of living into a reworked Christmas carol, and then there are the ‘long and winding road’ ones, which go on and on and on… and we enjoy them all! 

I think the real message of the card is in the sending of it - with or without pictures, with or without a letter, whether mailed, hand-delivered or emailed. Not the printed message contained in the card, but the message that the card itself delivers: someone’s thinking about you, someone’s wishing you health and happiness, someone cares. 

That’s the message everyone needs to hear, don't you think?