I finished making out the Christmas cards earlier this week. As I’ve said before, I don’t know how this became my job but it has. My wife, Priscilla, buys a few boxes of cards every December 26th and then puts them away with the decorations every year. As soon as we take the decorations out after Thanksgiving she says, “Alright! Get to work!”
I usually get some Christmas music going, maybe a hot chocolate or a cup of coffee. It really doesn’t take too long as the list has gotten a little shorter over the years.
(Liam helped this year.)
A couple of things came to mind this year as I was signing the cards. When we were first married, I signed each card just “Pete and Priscilla.” Of course, then it became “Pete, Priscilla and Sarah.” Then we added Doug, then Kat and lastly Matt. And yes, for a few years I signed each card “Pete, Priscilla, Sarah, Doug, Kat and Matt.” I suppose I could have abbreviated it and just said “The Braleys,” or, as were known, “The Braley Bunch.” Call me silly but I always thought that each child had their own identity and I thought I should recognize that. Now that they’re grown and on their own I’m back to just “Pete and Priscilla” again. The circle of life Christmas card edition I guess.
The other thing I noticed is how the list has changed over the years. I can still remember where my brothers address was in our book and Mom and an uncle or two. For the longest time I couldn’t bring myself to erase them in the book when they passed. It just seemed like that made it final and I didn’t want to go there. I know, silly, but that was my thinking.
I still send cards. I wonder if this tradition will continue much longer. It seems people are more comfortable with a text or a Facebook post. I agree that texting is much quicker, costs less and it’s a nice surprise when you hear from someone at a random time of day. I do know that receiving a Christmas Card is about the only thing interesting in the mail lately. I used to look forward to getting the mail every day but now it just seems to be bank statements, credit card offers and other assorted junk.
We talked about this on the show recently.
Matt was saying if you’re just going to send a generic holiday greeting he’d rather have a text instead. I admit, I think some of the cards we got on clearance last year said, “Enjoy the festive season.” That was it. No clever poetry or anything. Of course, I write a personal note on many of these but I can see his point.
A recent blog I read showed some stats from the U.S. Postal Service. The Postal Service has seen a sharp decline in the amount of mail overall over the years. The blog listed several reasons for this including the price of cards and stamps, people being busy and the digital age.
For me though, I still like to sit down with the address book, a cup of coffee and some Christmas Carpenters playing. Then of course there’s always the fun when we get a card in the mail: “Did you remember the Sevigny’s? Ok! Just checking!”
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