In an earlier era, I was very committed to giving out (and mailing) Christmas cards. I saw them as an opportunity to make a small difference in the life of the person receiving one.
Over the years, I’ve gotten lazy in that operation. I give out very few, if any, Christmas cards. It’s not that I am inherently against doing so; but for me it falls in the category of “just one more thing.”
I notice I am not alone. This year I received 3 Christmas cards in the mail, and a fourth was handed to me at work. It seems that sending out Christmas cards is no longer in vogue. Sales are down 23% for boxed Christmas cards and 15% down for individual Christmas cards. I still have the same pile of random Christmas cards, many of them without the correct envelope, in a desk drawer from the previous year, which is from the previous year, which is from the previous year, which is from. . . you get the idea.
One of the Christmas cards I received this year, the one at the office, did not have my name written in it, but it did have the name of the sender. I wonder if the sender simply duplicated her message on the inside of all of the cards she hand delivered, which simply had “Merry Christmas” hand-written, followed by “Happy New Year” also hand-written, followed by her name. It’s certainly an efficient way of doing things.
In the case of another card I received in the mail from a great friend and colleague, I saw the handwritten scrawl of what appears to be the words, “Merry Christmas!” followed by the name of the sender. A third card I received from a long-time friend and her husband contained some stunning original photos of wildlife her husband had taken during many of his excursions out in nature. The final card, also from a long-time friend, had a short but sweet sentiment hand-written in it.
All of these cards may or may not be a chore for those who sent them. But they still sent them. And that means something to me. They certainly did a much better job of taking the time to reach out than I did.
But I don’t feel particularly guilty about not sending out Christmas cards. While I do reverence the holiday we call Christmas, I am largely alone at this stage in my life, and my circumstances do not permit me to set up a Christmas tree, decorate a house, or do things the way I did them in an earlier phase of my life. I try to make up for it by being keenly focused on the birthdays of the individuals in my life – more than 70 of them – whose birthdays I make it a point of remembering, while dropping the ball on very, very few of them.
Still, the receipt of a Christmas card, regardless of what is written in them, is a welcome moment; someone took the time to acknowledge me in some way, regardless of how fleeting, or how chore-like, the gesture may have been for the sender. And that is a happy occasion.
