My Christmas Card Conundrum

 

For the past two years, my Christmas cards, which I used to have addressed, stamped, and mailed, well before Christmas, have been pushed so far back that they have morphed into New Year’s cards. As I sat today addressing and stuffing this year’s cards into envelopes, I began to ask myself why I even bother with cards anymore, considering their late timing, ultimate fate, and communication avenues such as Facebook.

                It seems that each year, the number of Christmas/New Year’s cards that arrive in my own mailbox dwindle considerably. In past years, my mailbox would be overflowing each day with greetings from afar from Thanksgiving until after the New Year. The wall where I hang them ran out of space, forcing me to stuff three or four cards a piece under each clothespin fastening the cards to the wall. However, the past two or three years have seen my clothespins become increasingly light and the time in which cards arrive become increasingly shorter. Today, I have only one or two clothespins that hold more than one card, a significant change from years past.  It seems that, like me, others have also started to question their motivation for sending cards.

                It is not surprising, in some respects, that friends and family have stopped the annual ritual of sending out Christmas/New Year’s cards. It is not only an expensive endeavor, with the cost of postage added onto the cost of the cards themselves, but also a time consuming endeavor, especially if personalized messages or letters are attached. It can be difficult to justify this cost when the end result of most cards is the recycling bin, even if hung or hoarded for several weeks before tossing them in said bin. Furthermore, Facebook, Facetime, Twitter and the like, allow daily long distance contact and communication with friends and family. Technology that has become so popular, you are archaic should you not utilize it. Today, I receive daily updates on my friends lives, however brief, and have the opportunity to not only watch their children grow, but share all those “first” events that I would miss being 3000 miles away from a good chunk of them, and ten hours away from the other chunk. I have already seen most of the Christmas card pictures before I receive them. In fact, the picture I am sending this year will have been seen by the majority of my family and friends due to Facebook.

                Why then do I continue to send cards out each year? The answer is surprisingly simple. I not only enjoy sending out cards and find it important to reach out to friends and family in a much more personalized manner than the internet, but I also enjoy receiving them. 

                Last year, I began my Christmas/New Year’s card by explaining the excitement that surrounds capturing the perfect Christmas card picture. I outlined in detail the craziness that ensues, as well as my family’s reaction to my somewhat obsessive behavior. Though I drive myself, and them, crazy, it has become somewhat of a fun and funny ritual in my house; me trying to capture the girls, and sometimes my very pessimistic husband, at the perfect moment, in the perfect pose, while they do everything in their power to photo bomb and sabotage my efforts. When I finally do capture that perfect photo, I feel somewhat triumphant and excessively pleased.  I enjoy the hours of searching online for the perfect template in which to place my perfect photo, and smile with delight when the two mesh into a piece of harmonious color and form. I further get excited at the thought of friends and family opening my masterpiece and delighted when I think of the “ooohhhing” and “aaaahhhing” that must surely result.

                I do a considerable amount of “ooohhhing” and “aaahhhing” myself, upon the receipt of cards from afar. Each Thanksgiving, I anxiously await the arrival of the first Christmas card. Trudging through the snow to our mailbox, I look forward to a stack of envelopes heavy with cards, instead of bills or junk mail. Opening cards is more than a daily task. It is a ritual. I first examine the return address. Who the card is coming from, or where the card is coming from, should it be void of a name.  Then with care and joy, I crack open each envelope waiting to find a surprise inside. Whether a picture, letter, or simply a signed card, I find holding those pieces of paper in my hand highly personal. I can imagine my friends or family members checking their lists, finding my name, and wondering how I am doing, as I do them, each time I address a card.  Unlike interactions across the internet, they, like me, have held that very card in their hand and taken the time and energy to send it. They have put time, thought, and love into the cards they send.

                The arrival of the New Year, instead of bringing an exciting new beginning, often enters my life with a sense of disappointment, as the cards become less frequent, the Christmas decorations come down, and life returns to its pre-Christmas routine. Personalized mail is almost non-existent, the bills and junk return and I am once again forced to communicate through Facebook. I realize that I not only miss those cards, those small tokens of love, but also miss daily face to face interactions with my friends living elsewhere. I wake up realizing that another year must pass before the cards start flooding my mailbox again and before I can occupy my time obsessing over something as simple as a Christmas/New Year’s card.