Christmas Card Tales

The celebration of Holidays give us the opportunity to look back and appreciate the way things began and then reflect these sentiments to those we love and cherish. It is that time of year when people of all faiths, ages and customs share and delight in their own special way.  Each year as I sit down to write my Christmas cards I’m always reminded of three favorite stories. Even though we keep in touch and updated with all our technology today, I still enjoy writing and receiving a pretty card in the mail. You know that phrase reach out and touch someone, well that’s how I feel! Several years ago while writing my cards, I poured myself a glass of wine and put on the Christmas Music and imagined I was up North in the cold weather. I wrote my usual notes and sang along with the songs (I’ve never out grown my quirky ways well anyway…) I finished the cards and got them mailed feeling like I was so ahead of myself. I could tick that off my list to do and move on. Well several days later the calls started coming in and asking what I was doing while writing my cards! I said Singing and having a glass of wine. They all laughed and said that explains why I had signed them Merry Christmas and Happy New York! I still laugh every time I think of it and yet also enjoy that I was caught up in my New York memory moments! Now I could say its in the genes, as another funny story was the year my Uncle Wilbert wrote out his cards and mailed them in New York City. He had the just opposite of my experience , as his friends and family all called to see if he was OK as they hadn’t received a card that year! He was equally surprised as he mailed them in the city and thought they would receive them faster. Well it turns out he had put them in the fancy gold boxes on the poles in New York (somewhere on Park Ave) and they were actually trash bins in the exclusive neighborhoods. He had assumed they were fancy mail boxes! We laughed so hard and realized that although it was like throwing money in the garbage, it actually was a priceless memory that brought a good laugh each year. My third Christmas card story was when one summer a few years ago we were cleaning our garage and found a box with cards in it. We checked the postmark and realized they were from ten years ago.We were about to throw them away when I realized one had not been open. I quickly opened it and to my surprise came money falling out of it. It had been from a very good friend Joe from Long Island. As we picked up the money we were laughing so hard and feeling embarrassed that we had never thanked him and he had never mentioned it. We immediately called him and explained and told him of our plan to order Chinese food that night with the money so we would have a memory that we could enjoy each year at this time!  Three mistakes that have brought such laughs and now traditions as well. I have my husband proof read my cards, we mail them at the post office and when we get them, open them right away!