Christmas cards

It's become an almost annual tradition on this blog.  My supposed farewell to the sending of Christmas cards.  

It began in 2008, when I observed how few people sent cards anymore, and how I hated to be the last person to abandon the custom.  Jumping ahead to 2016, my annual farewell was entitled "Happy whatever."  In 2018, "Dying custom."  In 2018, "Moribund."  And last year, the deceptively upbeat, "Just like the ones I used to know."

Who needs this annual downer?

This year?  Yes, I cheerfully admit I'm sending Christmas cards.  To the same folks I sent cards to last year.  About twenty, all in all.  Far fewer than my card lists of a decade or so ago, but at least the list -- this year -- isn't shrinking in size.  I bought twenty cards a few days ago.  I've now written my Christmas greetings on all but two of them.  My handwriting's getting bad, so -- if my message on the card is longer than a couple of paragraphs, I type it as a letter and enclose it in the card.

I bought Christmas stamps -- no more sticking plain old American flags on my Christmas card envelopes.  Two kinds of stamps, because the post office seemed to be running out of them-- one type secular, and the other an image of a religious painting.  I worry briefly about which person should get which, a concern my mother never had.  I use some nice looking return address stickers sent to me by a worthy charity -- even though I ignored the request for a donation.  

Starting this year, whether I receive a card from someone will no longer be a factor in deciding whether that person is worthy to be on my list.  In fact, although I'm using last year's list this year, starting next year I may actually add persons from earlier lists -- folks dropped for the silly reason that they didn't send me a card.

Yes, this is the new me, the new "true Christmas spirit" me.  No more eye for an eye.  No more measuring out my meager favors with an eye-dropper, applying exacting standards of worthiness on friends and acquaintances based on their reciprocation.

I don't mean that everyone I know gets a card.  Not even everyone I'm fond of.  I'm not a masochist, eager to spend my pre-Christmas days bent over a desk, quill and ink at hand.  Nor, on the other hand, do I propose to use a program that automatically churns out electronic cards to every address in my address book.  Amazon Customer Service won't be startled to receive an electronic card from yours truly.

But my decision of who gets a card that year, and who doesn't, will be wholly subjective.  There will be no algorithm that I can provide you.  I want to return to a perhaps-imaginary day when people sent cards to people because those were people they just felt like wishing a ... well ... an especially Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all (card recipient or not) and a Happy New Year!