It’s something we should have done by now, if we were going to do it. But we haven’t sent Christmas cards for years. So that’s one former chore we no longer have to do.
In some ways, it was fun to send Christmas cards every year. Taking an evening, maybe two, to sit down to sign all the cards, maybe write a little note in most of them to make them personalize them. While fondly try to remember who a lot of the people were that we were sending cards to.
I think that was one of the things that made us stop. Sitting there, addressing the cards and asking, “who are these people?” At least that was the start of the paring of the list. When we couldn’t remember who someone was, we started dropping them off the list.
Then life sort of got in the way and we really didn’t have time to deal with Christmas cards. Someone was either working or involved in something or we had to be one place or another and something had to give. Christmas cards were the easy sacrifice. Plus, the cost was going up for not only the cards but the postage to send them.
We never got the the point of the annual story. The letter enclosed in the Christmas card that details everything you’ve done for the past year. I do have family members who have done this for many years and still continue to do so. In some ways, it’s nice to find out what they have been up to, especially if you don’t see them very often.
When we first gave up the Christmas cards, I will admit there was a bit of guilt. After all, others were still sending cards to us. Although we noticed there seemed to be fewer of them each year. I’m sure other were cutting us from their lists. Or, like us, just giving up on the whole idea.
And then in more recent years, along comes Facebook and you can accomplish the same thing with one quick post that used to take you an entire night of writing by hand.
So we have given up on Christmas cards. I miss them in some ways. They looked pretty, displayed on the mantle and the several card racks we once had.
