The Christmas cards are starting to trickle into our mailbox. I love to open them up and look at the photos of friends and family, but they also serve as a guilty reminder that I am terrible at sending our cards out on time, if at all. In early November I give myself the annual Christmas card pep talk. “This is the year,” I say. “I’ll write a great letter, find the best photos, make mailing labels, and get them all done before the Thanksgiving turkey is in the oven, ready to mail when we flip the calendar to December.”
I toyed with the idea of bringing them along on our vacation, but packing holiday cards in between the swimsuits, snacks and dog toys seemed odd. And after all these years, I know myself pretty well. I would write a few of them, decide there were better things to do during our few precious vacation days, pack them back into the suitcase, and then a bottle of shampoo would leak all over them on the way home. Or I’d leave them behind on a shelf in the rental house.
By the second week of December, the pressure is on and the goal has shifted. Now I’m considering just sending cards to the folks who have already sent them to us. But what if I don’t send a card to someone and they send a card but it shows up a few days after Christmas? Do I then send an even later card? I return to the original plan of sending them to everyone on our list.
Time for the letter. I sit down and begin typing everything that’s happened over the last 12 months. Turns out, it’s been a pretty rough year, and the letter is more depressing than it is uplifting. Writing therapy for me, but not something you want to read in a Christmas card. Scratch the letter. No one else is sending Christmas letters anymore, I’m sure of it. Besides, it’s all on Facebook and Instagram. Most of the cards we get now are photo cards with maybe a handwritten signature or a short note. Why am I making this so complicated? I can print a photo card in under an hour at a local store.
I sift through thousands of photos on my phone for three perfect pictures to summarize this year. I have endless photos of our dogs, other people’s dogs, sunsets, things we needed to pick up at Home Depot, and still more dogs. If there’s a good photo of me, it’s a terrible one of Mike and vice versa. Come to think of it, why am I the one sending out Christmas cards? Why isn’t Mike helping me with this? How did this get to be my job? Is it my job? Is there a rule that I have to send out Christmas cards? Who came up with this idea anyway? Can’t we just text a card to everyone? I spend the next few minutes stewing about all of this before deciding yes, I do like to send actual Christmas cards. No, I don’t have to do it, I choose to do it. And I know if I ask Mike to help me sign cards, stick labels and stamps on and seal envelopes, he will. Sigh. Back on track again.
By the time you read this column, the kitchen table will be covered with stamps, envelopes and half-used boxes of cards I’ve acquired through the years. There will be a large mug of coffee next to me and I’ll be knocking off cards left and right, trying to get through the list. Like snowflakes, no two cards we send will be alike. No one will get a photo or a letter, but I’ll manage a few sentences in each card, something personal that means we were thinking of the recipient when we sent it. Because in the end, that’s what is truly important. Letting the people around us know we remember and love them, even if the card arrives a few days after Christmas. Or maybe New Year’s.