Wow, I just finished hand-addressing, hand-writing notes and sealing-wax stamping what feels like eleventy billion Christmas cards! Seriously, how do I know that many people?
I don't usually send Christmas cards; in fact I haven't in the last decade or more. This was not some anti-Christmas sentiment for me, it was purely practical. When I first moved out of my parents' house into my own, my budget was TIGHT. As in, if I got a run in a pair of pantyhose before the number of wearings I'd counted upon, I had to wear slacks until my next paycheck. So I never got into the habit of sending Christmas cards or even of decorating my house for Christmas; it was a choice between $45 - $65 for a tree, $ for lights, decorations, tree skirt, cards, postage OR buying gifts for my family and friends. So gifts won.
I'm in a much better financial place now and for whatever reason - I'm really not sure why, even after pondering it - this year sending cards seemed like a fun and nice thing to do instead of daunting and insurmountable. So I did it - hand-addressed all the envelopes, put stickers and decorations into them and wrote a line or two in the card. I didn't do a whole 'what's new with us this whole year' letter, just a few lines oriented to the person like 'looking forward to seeing you', 'hope you're doing well after the surgery', 'how's the new puppy?' and some (a lot actually) just said 'Merry Christmas! We love you guys!". Tonight I sealing-wax stamped every one with a holly-and-berries seal.
Those came out cool. So if you get a Christmas card from us with a weird red or green blob on the obverse, know that it started life as a pretty holly-and-berries wax seal.
I was torn between liking the coordinating colors and liking the contrast.
I think most of you will get green glittery. I used that stick more than red opaque.
I don't usually send Christmas cards; in fact I haven't in the last decade or more. This was not some anti-Christmas sentiment for me, it was purely practical. When I first moved out of my parents' house into my own, my budget was TIGHT. As in, if I got a run in a pair of pantyhose before the number of wearings I'd counted upon, I had to wear slacks until my next paycheck. So I never got into the habit of sending Christmas cards or even of decorating my house for Christmas; it was a choice between $45 - $65 for a tree, $ for lights, decorations, tree skirt, cards, postage OR buying gifts for my family and friends. So gifts won.
I'm in a much better financial place now and for whatever reason - I'm really not sure why, even after pondering it - this year sending cards seemed like a fun and nice thing to do instead of daunting and insurmountable. So I did it - hand-addressed all the envelopes, put stickers and decorations into them and wrote a line or two in the card. I didn't do a whole 'what's new with us this whole year' letter, just a few lines oriented to the person like 'looking forward to seeing you', 'hope you're doing well after the surgery', 'how's the new puppy?' and some (a lot actually) just said 'Merry Christmas! We love you guys!". Tonight I sealing-wax stamped every one with a holly-and-berries seal.
Those came out cool. So if you get a Christmas card from us with a weird red or green blob on the obverse, know that it started life as a pretty holly-and-berries wax seal.
I was torn between liking the coordinating colors and liking the contrast.
I think most of you will get green glittery. I used that stick more than red opaque.
2 Comments:
We got ours in the mail today - thank you from us and Mom!
By
Anonymous Me, at 5:50 PM
Did they arrive at the same time? I was thinking, the way the post office works, that they'd be a week apart or something. Like when we got married, we mailed all the invitations the same day, but Alan's parents next-door-neighbors got theirs something like 3 days after his parents did.
By
Helly, at 9:45 PM
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