Christmas Cards

I will catch up on yesterday's Advent Activity of making paper chains (after all, there's not much to say, and I only want to post a nice picture Fifi took of me and Lolly making our paper chains, but that involves uploading from my camera, and I haven't done it yet), and I'll quickly post two links for you to show you today's Activity of 'Check your email to find a message from Santa', but the main thing I wanted to say is...

Writing Christmas cards each year is seriously depressing.

I go through the list of names I've had for six years. I rewrite the list each year, dropping names slowly of people I haven't really kept up with enough to keep sending letters to. People who don't send them back and who I realise at this point don't really care. But that's not the depressing part. That, I think, is just life. No, the depressing part is dropping names of people who have passed away. The depressing part is splitting up couples into two different cards, because their marriages have ended. Each year, writing this card list depresses me. Each year there is some alteration, some dropped or split name. The divorced people - do the women go back to their maiden names? What are their new addresses? The people who have lost a spouse - do the women still go by Mrs? Do each of these people see the subtle change in the post arriving to his or her house on the envelope? Do they feel that pang? Is Christmas card writing actually worse than a waste of time, but even a painful experience?

Sigh. Well, on with the ritual. And here are those videos to cheer you up. It cheers me up at least to think of the kids reactions to them this morning. It was precious.

Lolly's message from Santa
Fifi's message from Santa