In the years B.T. (before twins), I would spend Thanksgiving weekend handwriting Christmas cards to my 100 closest friends and relatives, people I hadn't seen in years as well as people who lived next door. My favorite part, besides coming up with non-religious ways to send along the tidings of the season which is in its very nature religious (regardless of which religion, Christianity, Judaism, Wicca, and the like), was choosing the featured recipe as a little token of love and friendship, my gift to people for the holidays. I'd think long and hard about which one to select. Once I had chosen, I would make up and print out special recipe cards. This, instead of a picture, would go in my handwritten and hand-addressed cards.
DP always marveled at the operation--the gigantic box of cards (I use 10+ different ones a season, depending on who is receiving the card), all the stamps and stickers, the cross-referenced list of recipients, the pile of printed recipes. I would watch football all weekend and write cards on my lap desk, checking off names and always adding and subtracting. I'd pace myself--long cards to dear people faraway interspersed with short cards to those with whom I had little contact or lots. I had a favorite pen. I would sometimes draw on the envelope. They would all be finished by the end of the 4-day weekend, with the exception of the small pile of cards that never got sent because I didn't have an updated address. I started the whole tradition sometime in junior high, I think. I remember being so thrilled that I had my own people to send cards to--my favorite relatives, my pen pals, my best friends. As I gathered more pen pals (in Greece of all places--Martha Bitsopoulou, if you read this after all these years, write me!) and camp friends in other places, and then friends from high school and later college, the list grew longer and the process more elaborate. It reached its zenith when we moved back to the East Coast and had distant family, Chicago friends and co-workers, old NY friends, and such to write to. That was right before we had kids.
After spending so much time prepping my own cards, I was always a little surprised, maybe even a little hurt, to receive cards in return. At best they were impersonal "Dear Friend" Christmas letters reciting the major events of the year that, as a friend, I should have already known. At worst they were postcard pictures "Love, the Joneses" that had computer generated address labels. I even had relatives sign their whole names! Because, of course, these cards were assembly made--non-addressed cards randomly stuffed in computer-addressed envelopes.
Why would that be your token of love for the holiday season?
Now, before I don't get any Christmas cards this year, I will say that I have a better understanding of it all now. We can blame it all on children. Yep, children are destroying personal Christmas cards while at the same time insuring the continued existence of form letters and picture postcards.
And I am right there with everyone else now. Who has the time (or the money) to send out 100+ extra-weight handwritten Christmas cards? I haven't even found my box of cards yet nor bought any new. I'm not even sure where my address book is since my palm pilot bit the dust from disuse. I have, however, bought a 100 sheet stack of decorative computer paper, for my form letter. Gasp, yes, for the third year in a row, I too will send out a long form letter. And it will tell you how great the kids are and how happy we all are, with no word about illnesses or fights or lost keys or lost minds. I'll try to make it clever and not just a wikipedia-like chronicle of our year (especially because I'm sending it only to people who know what we're actually up to). I might include a picture, if we take one. For sure there will be a recipe, even if I haven't decided which one yet. And I'm hoping I can revive my palm pilot in time to create mail merge address labels, both return and addressee. Though, I will insist on writing "Dear [insert your name here]" and scribbling some good wishes at the end.
Do I love the recipients of these less-than-perfect cards? You bet. And I will be thrilled to receive in return your form letter and photo because it means you know that I'm interested. And that we're friends. In fact, I've already gotten both, sharing the letters with DP and putting the photos on the fridge (You people are way too organized. And you know who you are!).
Because when it comes right down to it--blaming it on the children again--I don't want to celebrate the holiday season writing 100 Christmas cards. I want to be with my family.
Which is why I bought Christmas rubber stamps today . . . so they can help me decorate all those envelopes!
Just don't expect them to arrive before Groundhog's Day.
The love is still the same.
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P.S. I should note that I am considering something revolutionary, eventually. To save trees, one of these years I might just do a fancy email complete with picture and recipe and form letter to everyone online on my list. But everytime I think of doing it, despite its green value, I become nostalgic for "real" Christmas cards, however much I'm cutting corners these days.
