Well, most of the Christmas cards — at least the out-of-area ones — are off in the mail. Cards are always kind of a difficult chore for us, partly because we’ve made it so.
We have a Christmas Letter that needs to be written, printed, and rubber-stamped, and we also have invitations for our Twelfth Night Party that need to be written, printed, cut, and stamped. We have cards that get one, cards that get the other, some that get both, some that get neither. We have cards going to local people by mail, cards going to each of our offices by hand, Twelfth Night invites going to offices without cards, and, of course, cards going overseas which we have to figure out the postage on, which means figuring out the weight on.
There’s also always the entertainment of figuring out who gets a card, who doesn’t get a card, and who would appreciate a religiously-themed card vs. who wouldn’t.
And, of course, we usually wait to the last second on this. (I’ve decided that NaNoWriMo will probably not happen for me next year — November sucks as a month to have all my free time absorbed.) Last year, in fact, I think we ended up mailing some cards from California. Which won’t happen this year, but only just.
It didn’t help that the party invites turned out to be just a scosh to big for the relatively small cards we did this year (or, more properly, their envelopes), so that I had to take them into the office today to trim them on the paper cutter, and then rather cleverly left them there, so that I couldn’t do anything with those cards.
I’m the Christmas Card Fanatic in our household, if you haven’t guessed. It was something my folks did (and do) diligently, and I’ve always felt it’s part of my obligation to those I know and love, or at least those with whom I never have any other contact save for such cards. It’s a means of staying in touch with my extended family (and friends), when I’m so bad at doing it in any other way.
It’s not Margie’s bag, but she’s usually very nice about thanking me for all the work I put into it (and drag her through regarding it).
Anyway, that’s the Christmas Card Status Report. For those who were interested, that is.