Holiday cards

It seems like such a silly thing, giving and receiving holiday cards, but I just love devoting a wall or a door to all the pictures and cards we get during the month of December.  Looking at it gives me a charge every time I pass it, reminding me of all the love in our lives.

After spending a lot of time writing the message that I printed on the back of each of our holiday cards last year (as in fed each and every one through our little printer), I decided that I wasn’t going to devote much time to this project for 2011.

So I ordered this year’s cards the other night after viewing only a handful of sites and options.  I spent maybe 45 minutes perfecting the card’s message and the font size and type.  Then another couple hours selecting a picture.  (Don’t get me started.) Our mailing list only needed a little tweaking since we have only met a handful of new friends this past year and not too many people have moved.

I was proud of myself that this is not going to be a time-consuming project for me, but then I got to thinking…

How special would it be if I could write a small handwritten note on each one just for that person, touching on something we have in common and wishing them well? I mean, we are sending them a card because we care about them, not because we want to brag about our family.  It’s a simple opportunity to make sure that these people know how much they mean to us and how much we value our friends and family.

I’m going to work on them gradually throughout this month.  I do want to mail them all out at the beginning of December because most of our friends probably don’t have our new address and I want to make sure we receive their cards.  I am looking forward to this project because it’s a powerful and enriching way to maintain connections.