So this year I made the difficult decision not to send Christmas cards, especially to people I already interact with regularly such as close friends, neighbours and my social media connections. I have been intending to do this for a while, but in the past my resolve weakened when those first cards arrived.
I’ve always laboured over the task, as my left-handed writing is truly awful. Plus, thanks to computers I now barely remember how to write! If I keep it brief and only say Merry Christmas and Happy New Year the whole thing seems pointless. Scrawl something longer and in my anxiety I’m sure to make mistakes. It seems disrespectful to post someone a bungled card, rather like turning up late for a lunch date. I suppose I could do the typed, ’round-robin’ letter……no, I couldn’t!
Of course there are always exceptions to the rule. My lovely friend Janet is in a nursing home and had promised to send our little family her hand made cards. No way would I not reciprocate.
When I announced my intention on FB a dear English friend said, ‘Oh, but I’ve already bought yours Pauline, I hope you don’t mind if I send it anyway?’ Mind?? I adore receiving snowy, northern hemisphere cards with robins, lanterns and red letterboxes. A perverse attitude on my part? Yes, but I’ll treasure this last one from Jackie.
All was going pretty well though. A great burden lifted from my shoulders. No worrying about whether my local Blackheath Post Office have Christmas stamps…..one year they didn’t!
I do create digital cards, from photographs taken in my garden. 😍
On November 30, a day of such stressful bushfire news for Australia, three cards arrived. Two were from Janet, and were utterly beautiful; cool, white and calming, with a special message in each.
The third was from my husband Rob’s cousin David, a retired Church of England minister. Every year David sends a personalized card, with a poem he writes. Last year he warned us all that it was becoming a bit much for him. In this troubled year of fires, Covid and so much else, he announced that the time to stop had come;
A last little poem……
I don’t have any religious faith at all, except perhaps in Mother Nature, but I have always been moved by David’s Christmas poems. His sentiments re the troubles of 2020 are perfect.
For those reading this, a very happy Christmas to you and your loved ones. May 2021 be full of the hope expressed in David’s final line. 🎄🧡🎁🤍🎄💛🎇
We received our first card today, snowy park lands with red robin, silver glitter and posted from QLD. Oh Lordy.
Haha, yes…when I was a child all our cards had snow and none were from the northern hemisphere. We had relatives in Cairns, and yes, all robins and glittery snow on cards from them!