JoAnne and I still very much enjoy Christmas cards. We send them and we like to receive them too. Most of the cards we receive are refreshingly beautiful too. We’re one of those couples who write the annual Christmas letter, now complete with color pictures, and copy it onto Christmas stationery to include in our cards. We do this because we know how we are disappointed when we open a card from an old friend only to find nothing inside but a signature, perhaps even a pre-printed one.
It’s a retro thing, I guess. Christmas cards just seem a little more personal than the e-touch. They also fit with the season; email happens all the time. We’ve experimented with moving our letter to email and saving all that money on stamps. That works, I suppose, but it just doesn’t have the same feel. I came from a home where we hung the Christmas cards around the wide hallway entrance to the old parlor. There were always enough of them to go all the way up one side across the top and down the other side. As I think back on it, it was like our family Christmas was surrounded by extended family. It was shared in some small way by a life-time collection of friends and loved ones. So JoAnne and I have returned to more cards and less email.
We also have kept track of many friends over the years through our Christmas cards. Many friends we have only written once each year, but that communication opened the way for a visit, or a longer letter, or a phone call or email conversation at a later time. Some very good friends we were sad to lose track of because they moved or did not return our cards. Sometimes, by perseverance we would find a good address again through a mutual friend.
We always try to pick cards that focus the true meaning of Christmas and include verses of Scripture. It is one more way to help us remember the first Christmas and our reason to celebrate; and to share that focal point with our friends and family too.