Cards and letters are really not passé.

I reckon Christmas is about the only time I feel the need to venture into a Post Office. I do enjoy getting out my little black book – yes it actually is all that. I have had it for years and there is so much crossing out and going overs and additions of names and scratching out of names that it is definitely passed its best, but I just can’t seem to get rid of it. I could transfer all the info onto a computer file and that would make life cleaner and smarter and more organised, but then I would miss out on the pleasure of going through it every year and having a little chuckle about events and people almost forgotten. The cold face of the computer will never bring that joy. And as I sit to write my cards, I want to feel that joy.

I don’t send out hundreds of cards, just a couple of handsful, but as I write them I imagine them flying off to their destinations and then sitting on a shelf or mantle watching over the festivities. I enjoy the thinking about where they are going and the people who will rip ‘em open. I sometimes am pretty sure that the people have moved, but I send the cards anyway, in the hope that some kind soul will pass it on, if not it doesn’t matter cos I have already enjoyed the sending.

Gone are the days when this little gesture an inexpensive. It is now just stupid money to send a tiny something anywhere let alone to the other side of the world, but I reckon that as there is pleasure in the sending and I hope in the receiving that at least I am getting double bunger for my bucks.

This year I included an ‘Annual Epistle’. A lot has happened and I didn’t really fancy writing the same dreary shit out more than once so I succumbed to the temptation to use that cold computer to make my life just that bit easier.

Years ago as a young woman I had a cousin who would send a ledger of annual events to everyone she could think of at Christmas time. I stopped reading the shit very early on. I couldn’t imagine why she thought anyone would be interested in how she broke a nail or why the paint was peeling off the front gate. The letter would go on for page after bloody page of boring irrelevant tedious yes even MUNDANE shit. The memory of how the family laughed at her behind her back is strong. Even my lovely old Nanna would get a fit of the giggles (not in a good way) as she read it and she knew most of the people who were mentioned. It seemed like an attempt to get the last word in on any dispute and disguise it amid all the other banality.

Anyway I think I have been loath to include this sort of thing because this memory is so strong.

I hope that the silly cards make up for the computer geekiness.

Off now to mortgage something to pay for the stamps.