Have you ever heard the story of “The Christmas without Cards”? I doubt that you have since I am not thinking about the real old days before folks sent Christmas cards or even knew what they were. Nope this is a tale of modern life. In fact, it is so up-to-date that is happening even as I write. It is a story full of pathos and even some bathos. OK, there were some Christmas cards still involved, but when The Blonde in the house went to the postal station and there were no cards from those we hear from once a year, it seemed like it was “The Christmas without Cards”. How would anyone who depends on news from the once a year friends feel if it happened to them?
How else is one to learn about new babies, marriages, deaths, divorces, moves and so forth? There are those who would say that it is a constitutional right to hear about such matters over Christmas. If it isn’t, it undoubtedly should be. The Blonde sent cards to these very same people this year, so they know what is occurring in the Evans’ household, but now we will probably have to wait until next Christmas to catch up. We are not getting any younger (who is?) so to have to bear up under a double dose next year will be hard. The Post Office is not of any help as we are apparently past the forwarding date from our last address. Besides, they don’t have the manpower to write all the forwarding addresses on all those undelivered cards.
I will admit that we have some tiny responsibility in this. Moving is good. It invigorates the soul and makes you a more complete person. It can, however, create problems if you move too much – which we have been known to do. In this case we sent out Christmas cards last year with our old address on it. We did that because we didn’t know that we would be moving. However, in February of this year we did. We didn’t think of that when we sent the cards out this year although we did have the return address on the envelopes. However, some people most likely had mailed their cards to our old address and others didn’t pay any attention to the address on the card we sent them.
I consider it part of my civic duty to mention the above so that none of you end up without your incoming Christmas cards. It can be a very frustrating and humbling experience to recognize that you are ultimately responsible for not getting your constitutional share of Christmas cards. Nevertheless, if you look at the whole situation from a universal aspect, it might not be all bad. The post office will as part of its motto to deliver no matter what the situation will send the undelivered cards back to the sender. The sender will undoubtedly be ticked off wondering why the card came back – and perhaps even wonder if something had happened to us. After a short period, he will realize that he can take the card out of the envelope and send it to us next year assuming that we are still around. We will be!
The only slight problem could be that we are moving again (in The Villages). Right after Christmas as a matter of fact. We will have a new address….
Columnist Barry Evans writes about Life in The Villages for Villages-News.com.
