Christmas Cards - the paper, handwritten kind

      Tis the season... and I would have liked to deck my blog accordingly, but alas Blogger doesn't offer any Christmasy backgrounds. So the  seasonal posts will have to do. Anyway....

 

 

WooHoo! I got my very first Christmas card today, which of course now smiles at me from the tack board above my computer at school. It's from one of my, first grade students, and was hand-delivered with a sweet, all-I-want-for-Christmas-are-two-front-teeth grin - sugar and spice and all things nice...

 

 

 

I love cards, and this time of year, especially Christmas cards. For they are a lovely reminder that someone is thinking about me, and took the time to choose a card, sign it and maybe add a note of Christmas cheer, stamp it (not exactly cheap these days) and drop it in the mail for me. Or perhaps, find some other interesting way to have it delivered. I get a quite a few by 'pony express' - someone other than the mailman brings it. A good alternative which I use as well. Works wonderfully among the Hutterite colonies, with people always traveling back and forth.

 

Given the fact that postage rates are always on the rise (can remember when a letter could be delivered for less than a dime)people also send e-cards. I chose that option as well on many occasions - quick, free and does show people you care. However, for me, nothing says it like the old-fashioned paper and pen card!!

 

Nowadays, many people, some of my sisters included, create gorgeous home-made cards. I get a few of those every year as well, and marvel how much time must have been spent making them - each one, creative, unique and beautiful!

 

Thus, every year, around the first snowfall, I put on some Christmas music, collect a good pen and my boxes of cards and start signing them. Adding personal notes and wishes in each one, I reminisce about the people receiving them... I still have a few more to do, but some are already stuffed with love, and are making their way to family and friends, far and near.

 

What a simple, yet beautiful way to touch the people you love at this festive season!

 

Let us remember that the Christmas heart is a giving heart, a wide open heart that thinks of others first. The birth of the baby Jesus stands as the most significant event in all history, because it has meant the pouring into a sick world of the healing medicine of love which has transformed all manner of hearts for almost two thousand years... Underneath all the bulging bundles is this beating Christmas heart. - unknown