The "Christmas Card List" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Christmas will be arriving in no time and the decorating, cookie baking, present buying and wrapping as well as the card sending will shortly be history.  Well, yesterday my wife decided that it was time to address our greeting cards for Christmas.  How did that custom get started anyway?  Not sure and I don't intend to "Google" it.  Won't change our plans anyway.  We have a list from past years that will serve as our card receivers for this year plus a few new ones to be added.  Carol asked me where I may have put the cards that we bought for this Christmas and I told her I would retrieve them.  Few minutes later I walked into the family room and told her, "I have no idea where they might be. I guess we didn't buy any this year," She responded with, "I thought we bought them at Old Salt on the boardwalk in Ocean City when we were on vacation with the kids."  No such luck.  

Card I made in 1979.  It was a linoleum block
print that my kids colored after I printed them.

I told here that we have enough left-over cards from the 46 previous years that we sent cards, so why not use them?  "Someone might recognize the card and wonder why we sent them the same one as we did before," she said.  Likely to happen?  I think not!  Anyway, we hopped in the car to buy Christmas cards. Drove five miles in heavy traffic, found a box of 24 that we fussed over, but finally bought.  "Will that be enough to cover our list including the new names?" I asked her.  "If not, we'll drop some off the list," she returned.  So, home we went and revised our list for the umpteenth time.  "We didn't get a card from her the last couple of years so we'll take her off the list.  

This card was silkscreened.
I printed it in 1983.

I don't even know if she lives at the same place anymore," she tells me.  "Why do we send cards to the kids and relatives that we will see on Christmas Day?" I ask.  Now, I can see if it features a photo of the two of us or something special that we made, but just a store-bought card?  I guess I should be in favor of everyone sending Christmas cards to everyone they know, since both my boys are in the printing trade and it might help preserve their jobs, but how many people read every card they get in the mail at Christmas?  Don't you open the card and after seeing it is a boxed Christmas card, just look at the name of the sender and put it in your pile of Christmas cards or hang it with a clip on the greens that you have placed on your stair rail.  I do!  

This card was printed on the offset press.
It was our Christmas card in 1984.  My
children colored the tree.  We no longer
live in this house, but did for 29 years.

If the card features a family portraiture I will look at the card to see if I can name all the members of the family.  The stack of cards, all addressed and stamped, sit on the kitchen counter ready for mailing.  What used to cost us 5 cents to mail 46 years ago, now costs us 46 cents.  The quantity has diminished and the quality of the Christmas card has decreased, but at least the members of our greeting card list will still know that we are thinking of them during the season that celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ.  And, if you didn't get a card from LDub and my wife, it's not that we don't like you, it's probably because we ran out of cards and my wife won't let me use some of my really neat old cards. My guess is your last name begins with a letter at the end of the alphabet!  Hey, Merry Christmas anyway!!  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.  PS - remember to click on the cards to get a better view of them.