Christmas Cards - Finished!

It's only December 2 but I've finished my Christmas cards.

I cut back a little each year, but there are still fifty names of people who require cards. I've lived in several states, moving some seventeen times in the fourteen years that I was married.  That meant always meeting new people,  many of whom became friends.  Some of the cards go to people I haven't seen in over fifty years, yet once a year we connect because of the holiday.  Each letter requires at the least a note and at the most a long chatty letter.  Some of the names are new on my list.  They belong to Gary's family.  When he moved here he gave me the job of sending cards to them as well.  I don't mind.  

I begin on Thanksgiving and "bash on" as a friend says. Every day, I work through two or three letters of the alphabetized list.  Tonight, I dropped all but three of the cards at the post office.  Those three require a day time trip because they will be mailed overseas.  

The job done, Gary and I sit back and wait for Christmas cards to arrive in our mailbox.  

E-mail greetings are never the same.  I get some of those, too, but they can't be held in my hand.  They haven't been touched by the special people who sent them.  Somehow, the connection just isn't there as it is in those pieces of paper.

With the cards done, with the house decorated, we move to the next phase of Christmas preparation:  baking.
Gary bought a room freshener with a sugar cookie scent and set it here in my office.  I think that is a hint to get out the cookie trays.