New Directions
A friend just sent me an email asking for our address so she could send a card. This friend has been in my house numerous times but never felt the need to actually notice where I live until now.
I didn't bust her chops, just laughed and complied. It did, however, smack me over the head with one of the pitfalls of technology we'd already noticed, and that's how dependent we've become on gadgets for our lifes' directions. Just Google or Mapquest or plug things into the on-board GPS. Addesses have become nothing more than a set of map coordinates for people who don't read maps anymore.
But I digress. Call me a dinosaur, but I like getting cards! When I was a kid, my family taped the cards we received up and down and across the door frames of our living room and the small gas fireplace and sometimes even hung them on the tree itself. They became as much a part of the decorations as the lights on the tree and the ghastly plastic wreaths I made out of dry cleaner bags I'd learned how to make in school. (To this day I marvel that my mother actually put them on the door.) Over the years, I've noticed a decline in the tradition of sending cards and mourned the loss. E-cards are nice, but it's just not the same. Though they flash and sparkle and sometimes even sing, it's hard to hang them anywhere.
I guess we're a dying breed. Still, we soldier on for the handful of folks like us who continue to cling to the old ways. My sister says we should take up calligraphy so we can be doubly quaint. Then when everything old becomes new again, we can be in the forefront of retro. You think? Do you send cards?
Happy holidays, everyone!