The Christmas card tradition

After procrastinating as long as I could, I finally sat down to begin writing Christmas cards.  I had mailed a few cards earlier, but on this afternoon I wanted to make the big push.  A neighbor stopped by to help with a small fix-it project and saw my cards, still to be written, on the dining room table.  "You're still writing Christmas cards?"  "I don't think they will arrive in time," he added.  What could I say?  I agreed with him.      

I looked through my phone for addresses of friends who I have not seen in the past year.  I looked for addresses of friends that I have not seen in many years and where the thin thread of our association remains our annual Christmas card exchange.  For some, especially those friends who I have seen more recently, a small note rolls off the tip of my pen. Writing a note for the thin thread friends is more difficult.

From my cousin, my favorite Christmas card this year.

I thought about what sending Christmas cards meant when I was a kid.  How important it was.  It seemed that everyone did it.  We would count the cards as they arrived in the mailbox and, as little kids, this made us feel important.  All this mail, all these cards!  My mother started with the first card received and, using straight pins (the kind used for hemming skirts and trousers), she pinned it to the top of a long red ribbon.  As cards arrived, each was pinned to the first, the second and so on, and eventually, as more were received, she formed them into the shape of a Christmas tree.  We counted them and declared which were our favorites.  We wondered who half of the people were:  "Dad, is this someone you knew in the Air Force?"  "Mom, are these people related to us?"  

We were a family of eight children and Christmas increased the busyness of my parents.  Nevertheless, I remember my mother sitting at the kitchen table with a box of Christmas cards, a roll of stamps and her Christmas card address list with her tidy printing open in front of her.  For some she wrote a little note, and for others she simply signed her's and my father's first names followed by and family.  We kids were the and family.  It was the way people let others know they were important and that they were remembered at Christmas.

So much about how Christmas is celebrated has changed, but the mechanics of writing and sending Christmas cards remains the same.  Some cards are embossed with the sender's name thereby avoiding the need to write it out.  Family photos with children and pets are, arguably, the most popular to send and fun to receive. Each year I receive a handful with annual letters folded inside the card.  These are mostly well-written, informative and always upbeat.

Today fewer and fewer people send Christmas cards.  Some people never took up the tradition in the first place.  I tried to give it up but as the cards sent by family and friends arrived in my mailbox, it didn't seem right.  I felt lazy and ungrateful. Why do we continue to send Christmas cards?  Technology has eliminated expensive, long-distance calling.  We have email, WhatsApp and texting.  For those who use it, we have social media. While the numbers and who is sending vary each year, the first Christmas cards begin to arrive around the beginning of December, from the non-procrastinators, and usually continue through the end of the month - yes, from people like me.   

Sending Christmas cards, often to people I have not seen in years, feels like having a vestigial limb.  For now, I'll continue to keep my vestigial limb attached.  Next year I'm thinking of writing an annual letter although, truth be told, I have considered this for the past several years.   Perhaps next Christmas I will actually write a letter and include it with my card.  But, I doubt I will become a non-procrastinator.