11 DECEMBER, 2019 - WHAT'S A CHRISTMAS CARD DADDY?

                                                   

 
The Harbor is dark, there are no Christmas lights.
I just began thinking about Christmas cards . . . remember those?

back in the 1950's we had soo many, that we had to add extra rows of twine across the mantle to hang them on (155 as I recall).

It was a large part of Christmas/Hanukka/Bozich, there was the "choosing" of the cards (very important to adjust the greeting or picture for each recipient), that huge task led to the pre-engraved same-card idea, but, now, to not appear "cold" each card had to have a personalized message handwritten inside (very tedious and time consuming).

We lived out... so everything had to be mailed, which was a "handwrite" the address on an envelope fun-time, then, there was the stamping.    and, all of those that came back as NSA or "Moved" or with a ? on them because they were missing a city or state.

Early on, I realized things about government workers intellect, I mean how many Chicago,     (no state), choices do we have? or Wapakoneta ? or Poughkeepsie... no wonder the 1960s saw the invention of the zipcode... it was for the Postal Sorters,  "George, can you go to the map and point to Denver for us?" (I didn't think so).

As time went on the cost of stamps kept rising, as did the cost of cards, as did the overall time investment... back then, no one cared about the poisonous ink, or the trees (paper), or the emissions from driving to the post office and the process of driving around to deliver these nation-wide, or thee birth defects from licking stamps, or even the accidental insults of opening a card to "Hi Bill !" when your name is Sam, or a card to your dead wife "Have a great Holiday Shari !" or, the Libovitz family not appreciating the Manger card.

This year I got a card from the Bank... with an advertisement and my last name misspelled, and another from Amazon with my Prime account number in four places. 

Mail Chimp does all the email form cards for me right out of my "contacts" file automatically on the 20th... all preloaded, pre-set, and I am not worried about filling up the landfills, destroying the planet with non Soy ink, or worrying about the rainforest pulp mill.

But, Christmas is ruined now... there is no snow on the Oregon coast, Santa Clause is not real,  stores (remember them?) do not play carols anymore, Amazon and eBay don't wrap the gifts I send or receive, Christmas Cards are collectors items, killing a live pine tree is wrong, and, the furnace keeps blowing out the menorah, 

I cannot remember the other thing Christmas was known for,  was it Rudolph's birthday ?  No...wait, it was for the egg nog and cookies, right? <s>