Sending and Receiving Christmas Cards December 23, 2024 516 words

My first memory of Christmas cards was watching my mom as she sat with a stack of colorful cards at the kitchen table. She had a small address book with her list of people to send greetings. Each envelope was addressed with small flowing cursive. In each card there would be a personalize note of greeting. I was allowed to help by licking and attaching a stamp to the top right hand corner of each envelope.A return sticker was attached to the back side of the flap. Mom would work for several evenings to ready the cards for an early mailing. We would walk to the post office to mail the whole battch at one time. Then we would wait for the return cards to appear in the mail box.
Our mailbox was a flat rectangle with a flap on the top. There were two two curved hooks attatched to the bottom of the box for larger magizines and circulars. Often the post person had to ring the doorbell if the mailbox was full or the mail was too large .
My job was to open each card received and keep the envelopes to later check for changes in addresses. We would hang each card from a cord. The cards would start on the wall by the piano, travel across to the wall by the sofa across the mantle and finally across the top of the large picture window. Extra cards were hung on the hallway wall.
Each card was held in place with a tiny red clothespin. Later, ribbons and pins replaced the clothespins to secure the cards.
One year I took an old Readers Digest, folding the the top of each page to form the shape of a tree. I colored pages with green and red crayons. The front and back of the digest were glued together to form a 3D tree. Christmas cards could be slipped between pages for easy display and rereading.
When buying postage stamps, we always selected a group of stamps with an artistic rendering of the Madonna and Child. Our Catholic school sold decorative stamps for raising money for the missions. I recall that selling or buying five dollars of stamps would buy a baptism for a mission child. We could choose a name for the babies baptismal name.
These days, cards come from the older generation. Young family members, text or e-mail starting a thread or send photos from their computer. I still enjoy opening mail to find Christmas Cards.
For the last several years, I have enjoyed receiving mail with greeting in Braille. I enjoy the cards that were hand made by the sender.
Whether a one of a kind or a Christmas letter, all are read and hung from a ribbon in our family room. They will be the last remnants of Christmas to be taken down.
***. poem
Tradition
I sit, write, place a stamp
remembering mailing in the past.
assemble or work alone
Christmas greetings not by phone
cards felt with your hands
loving thoughts from land to land
carolaspot@aol.com copyrighted 12/23/24