The Spirit Of Christmas Cards Past
It hit me yesterday that something is missing this holiday season- I've only received one Christmas card! I know, I know it's early and the one I have pulled out of my mailbox is a winner! It's from Laura Beth and Chad and family. Laura Beth is one of my favorite players/students/people ever and I was blessed when she and her fiancee' turned husband asked me to help officiate their wedding sixteen years ago this month. The card is covered front and back with pictures of the two of them and their two beautiful children on vacation. Hard for me to believe I knew Laura Beth when she was the age of her offspring! I am so grateful for their remembering me but so far, my box has only been filled with end of the year reminders of Christian charities- I think there were four today- and ads that go in the trash. I love the good works asking and deserving of our support but they are groups and not quite as personal as you might like. I mean as I might like!
I'm going to make a bold statement here. Let me preface it by saying this is an observation with absolutely no scientific research involved. But I don't think folks are sending out Christmas cards in the same volume as in the past. This theory is simply based on personal data. My guess it has to do with how we keep up on the Internet now. We've already seen other's pictures and know each other's plans and who is pregnant and who is engaged and who is sick and who is going to which college. It might be caused by the cost of postage rising dramatically the past several decades. And there's one other thing. We've just fallen out of the quaint custom of putting ink on parchment- too time consuming and too slow. But something beautiful has fallen by the snowy wayside and very regrettably, I'm afraid.
Here is where I have a confession to make. I don't send out Christmas cards. I just love getting them! Oh, I give them to my players and Jenna and Jean, my teacher's aides, but that's the extent. In fact, I can't recall the last time I dropped a stamped Christmas card in the outgoing mail slot at the Post Office. But I love getting them! It's a twist on the old do as I say, not as I do proverb. What did Jesus teach in Matthew 5:7, right in the middle of the beatitudes?“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy."There is undoubtedly a lesson for me in those nine words of the Savior. And there are still twelve days left until the 25th! If you are a sender, God bless you, and know your efforts are appreciated by the non-senders of the population. I look forward to hearing from you! And for the rest of us, prayers for a possible change of heart and habit! It could be a Christmas miracle.
Applicable quote of the day:
Don't send funny greeting cards on birthdays or at Christmas. Save them for funerals, when their cheery effect is needed.
P. J. O'Rourke
God bless,
Steve
Luke 18:1
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