THE CHRISTMAS CARD THING

“I had many things to write, but I will not with ink and pen write unto thee:” (3 John 13)

A number of years ago, an older woman in our congregation asked me if God is speeding up time and making things go faster.  I told her “no”, although I don’t think she quite believed me.  At this time of year, I’m almost ready to say that maybe she’s right!  I find that the month or so between Thanksgiving and Christmas is the fastest period of any year.  As a kid, I absolutely loved Christmas.  By the time I was 40, I absolutely hated it.   Now, at 52, I’m kind of “in between” about it, but it definitely is not my favorite time of the year.  I’ll write more about this in another entry, but what I’m thinking about today is Christmas cards.

Friday morning, I updated my Christmas card list (stored in my office computer) as well as my Christmas card mailing labels list.  That IS a great blessing; up until just a few years ago, I did all the Christmas card stuff by hand.  I know this entry could easily start wandering all over the place and make little sense, so I’m going to try to give it some sort of an order that I’ll call CHRISTMAS PAST, CHRISTMAS PRESENT, and CHRISTMAS FUTURE.

CHRISTMAS PAST:  Back in the 1960s, Christmas cards were a very big deal.  Unless you were Jewish, if you were an American, you sent out and received lots and lots of Christmas cards!  Even some Jewish people DID send them out...usually theirs said something like “Seasons Greetings”.  I well remember my mother writing the Christmas cards.  I can remember helping to put the stamps on them.  The first year or two that I was married, it quickly became evident to me that cataloging and sending Christmas cards was not my wife’s thing.  Our cards went out very late.  By the mid-1980s, I told her I would take on the Christmas cards as my project each year.  I put together elaborate Christmas address lists, and carefully bought, wrote out, and sent cards each year.  At our Framingham residence, each year I have hung up the Christmas cards we’ve received.   Some years we got so many I almost had no more room to hang them!  I also used to do one of those “Baril Family Newsletter” things with my Christmas cards.  A few years ago, a friend tactfully told me she dislikes those newsletters that come with Christmas cards, and that she calls them “brag letters”.  I realized that I liked WRITING my letter, but I didn’t like READING other people’s letters, so I stopped doing a newsletter with the cards.

CHRISTMAS PRESENT:  In the past few years, I’ve noticed the number of Christmas cards we’ve received has really gone down.  Each year, there are fewer, although I still send about the same amount (around 65-70).  Sending them IS getting more and more expensive.  People of the Twenty-First Century also seem to be SO busy that they just don’t have time to write and send Christmas cards anymore.  As I’ve written above, I kind of “cheat” with the mailing labels, which does save a lot of time.  My goal is to have all of my Christmas cards sent by Dec. 7 (Pearl Harbor Day).  I don’t always succeed with that, but once again, I’m going to try.

CHRISTMAS FUTURE:  I’m really debating whether I want to send Christmas cards after this year.  I AM going to send them this year, but I’ve considered including a note (photocopied and mass produced, of course) saying this will be the last year I’ll be sending Christmas cards.  I have not made a final decision about it.  It’s just that I think the custom is  dying, and I’m reevaluating the whole thing.  I know some will suggest I should send all e-cards for Christmas.  I hope this will not offend anyone, but I absolutely will NOT send e-cards for Christmas -  EVER.  I love e-mail, and I enjoy the blog, and a lot of other stuff about computers and the internet, but a Christmas card is a card.  It’s made of “card stock”.  It’s something somebody held and signed and dropped in a mail box and that you hang up for others to see.  That’s a card.  I won’t send Christmas e-cards.  Some churches display one large Christmas card and have everybody in the congregation sign it in lieu of sending Christmas cards.  Honestly, THAT’S kind of a cop out, too.  So, I haven’t made a final decision.  Maybe I’ll STILL be writing and sending Christmas cards in 2026 ... only God knows ...

I’m truly curious.  Do you send Christmas cards?  Do you think I should keep up the practice or is it something from a bygone era?  

I’d really like to know.  Please post a comment or e-mail me at RevRBaril@aol.com