Updating the infamous Christmas card list

By Mike Lange
Staff Writer

    We’re already falling behind this Christmas. The icy road conditions put a damper on some early shopping trips. In addition, we didn’t even update the Christmas card list until last week.

    Our usual practice is to put up the Christmas lights and start adding or deleting names from the card list on Thanksgiving weekend.
    The lights never went up since I have an aversion to crawling on snow or ice-covered roofs. And the Christmas card list was tucked in a file folder on my PC that I rarely open.
    So I finally got around to it. As usual, our thoughts ranged from “Why are we still sending them a card?” to “Are you sure her husband is still alive?”
    Few things are more embarrassing than sending a greeting card to “Mr. and Mrs.” and getting a note back politely telling us that one of them passed away nine months ago.
    Names stay on Christmas card lists for various reasons. Except for close friends and relatives, the other names are usually ones who unexpectedly sent us a card at one time and we reciprocated. So they’ve been on the list for 18 years and we’ve only seen them once during that time.
    We still keep up the tradition of displaying our Christmas cards around a large mirror in the living room, draped with garland. Others are taped neatly on the door. I’ve never bothered counting how many we get each year, but it always exceeds the number we send. So my wife adds more to the list each year.
    We don’t have a firm policy on deleting names from the Yuletide list, unless they’ve passed away. I’d prefer to cull the list down to people we’re either related to, work with or socialize with on a regular basis.
    To my better half, however, it’s “the more, the merrier.” We still send cards to friends we knew in Farmington 35 years ago, old Army Reserve buddies and relatives we haven’t seen since Jimmy Carter was president.
    Personal notes with Christmas cards are always enjoyable. I have an aunt that lives in a Detroit, Michigan suburb who keeps us posted on her family activities a couple of times per year. She also still has good handwriting, even though she’s approaching 90.
    A few people also send family newsletters. Some are lengthy descriptions of every event that took place in the last 12 months — “Tommy got his second tooth in May” and “Susie passed her driver’s test on the first try.” Others just hit the high points — “Joey graduated from college and finally moved out of the basement.”
    So we’ll get to work on this year’s list pretty soon and mail our cards by the weekend. It will still include some questionable names, but it’s the season to be jolly and generous.
    What the heck. Some people are also looking at our names on their list and saying, “How come we never hear from them during the rest of the year?”
Mike Lange is a staff writer with the Piscataquis Observer. His opinions are his own and don’t necessarily reflect those of this newspaper.