Christmas Card Conundrum

I've never been really good about the kind conventions of life. Back in boyhood, one of my Christmas gifts was--always!--a package of thank-you notes, and Mom would require my brothers and me to write them, the day after Christmas. I can't say I was fond of the task. (I hated it.)

My mother and her mother were spectacular about such things--thank-you notes, condolence notes, Christmas cards. Mom, well into her 80s, was still sending them--though the number of recipients (a consequence of age) had declined markedly, of course.

In recent years I've been sending cards only as a form of reply: If you send me one, you get one back ... eventually. (Gross, I know; my mother would not have understood--and would have sent my way The Look, that disapproving facial expression that is one of my oldest memories--and deservedly so.)

So what I'll do this year is what I've done the past more-than-a-few years: write my cards on Christmas Day at a coffee shop. (Hey, they're Christmas cards: That means you write and mail them on Christmas, right? ... I feel The Look coming my way right now.)

Not that I get a lot of them--especially in these days of Facebook and texting and emailing and Messenger, etc. And ... I'm in my 70s ...

But I have a few already ... from ...

• a revered former teacher
• some former students
• a former colleague
• a long-ago friend
• a former college roommate

Joyce and I keep the incoming cards in a little basket in the dining room (see pic above), and on Christmas Day, I will sort out those ones aimed only at me, then head over to Starbucks (my wonted coffee shop is closed that day) and spend some time (I hope by their wee fireplace) answering those notes.

Don't get me wrong. I am not complaining. I love hearing voices from the past--and, eventually, I love replying, as well. I know perfectly well that I owe many other people so much--friendship (when I often didn't deserve it), education (when I often didn't value it), respect (when I often hadn't earned it), affection (when I ... you get the picture).

So--thanks to all who wrote. And thanks, as well, to those who didn't. I mean, I like writing Christmas cards--eventually. But I don't like writing a lot of them!