Just read Iris’s post on sending, or not sending, cards for Christmas. Of all the practices at this time of year, sending cards is probably my favourite activity. Each year I send about forty cards, to various friends and family members. (I wonder how many Tim Kelly sends?)
I don’t usually write much in each card – usually a greeting and some sort of good wish, with the occasional snippet of news thrown in. My grandmother gets her card written in Chinese. I’d probably find it too stressful to have to write forty here’s-how-my-year-went letters. I’d hate to do a form letter, and would want to personalise the letters somewhat, but I don’t think I could manage to write forty different letters in one sitting. But do I really need to do that for people who read my blog anyway? (Granted, not all the people I’ve sent cards to even know this blog exists!)
I think I like writing and sending – and receiving – cards because it feels personal. There’s something I really like about holding a card in my hand, that I know a friend selected for me, and to read their handwriting and see their good wishes. I like being able to tell a friend I haven’t really heard much from all year that I’m thinking of them at this time of year, and I hope they’re well. And I’m probably the only person in the word who enjoys the feel the pen nib makes, and the flourishes on the card.
The people I haven’t sent cards to are the friends I’ve made over the past year and a half or so via this blog – only because I don’t have their addresses. So I’ll have to make do with sending good wishes online.
3 Comments
I have a feeling I’ll enjoy my cards as soon as I get the stack off of my desk.
There’s also family history behind this dread of cards, though (when isn’t there family history…). You see, every year I have to update addresses for my grandma, who sends out about 400 printings of a form letter. There’s always a struggle over which addresses are old and which are new, and she refuses to throw out old lists, so I’ve been known to spend two days correcting an old list only to be handed the new list later on. Then there’s the mail-merging with the letter, the printing of labels, the folding… All of this puts a bad taste in my holiday letter-sending mouth.
It also means that I never remember that I *only* have 30 or 40 cards to send, and not 400.
But reading your post I now know what I have to do before Christmas time next year: buy myself a really nice pen. That would probably make all the difference.
Oh, a nice pen makes ALL the difference to me 😉 This year my cards were written using my Lamy 2000 fountain pen (M nib) with Waterman Florida Blue ink.
Sounds wonderful!!!