Why Send Christmas Cards?

In a very hard economic world we live in why stop and take the time to make out Christmas cards? I grew up in a home that was filled with Christmas cards. My parents would sit together and do their Christmas cards; they had a list of over hundreds. While doing this they would play Christmas music and actually enjoy sitting together writing them and stamping them. Each day my mailbox would be filled with cards from family, friends and my parent's co-workers. My house was decorated with these cards; they hung on ribbons on the walls and decorated our banisters. How nice it looked, how loved and how thought of my parent's were. I would go to my grandmother's house and find the same displays of hundreds of cards hanging and decorating her house.

As the years went by less cards seemed to be sent out and less cards seemed to come in. This was upsetting to me and the excuses that were heard were they were too expensive to buy and then the price of stamps kept going up. All these reasons are just excuses for really not taking the time to continue a tradition that has been around forever. Are our friends and family not worth the price of a stamp? Can't cards be bought the year before and saved at much cheaper prices? Since we are all in a world that seems to move faster than before it seems we are chasing after a train that we can never catch up to. I think it is important to take that time, sit and enjoy writing those cards. Say hello to an old friend that lives far away, or a relative that isn't near by.

Thinking of the men and women serving our country how nice it is for them to receive cards even from strangers, just a card saying they were thought of. I know my children as school projects have had to write and send cards to men and women overseas because those simple Christmas cards are a connection to a world that they can't be a part of right now, because they are serving our country. It makes them feel loved and thought about during a holiday, which I am sure, is hard for them to be away from. Such a simple task as a card doesn't need to be an expensive one and a stamp, how happy this makes them. Are we to say we can't afford this? Are we to say these men and women are not worth a simple card and stamp?

Now is the time to realize do we want all our traditions that we grew up seeing gone? Due to our economy more and more people seem to be cut from our Christmas lists do we really need to cut out a simple card to them as well? Go to discount stores buy those cards, share writing them out with your husband/wife/children make it a tradition. Send out that once a year, yes it's just once a year card to those people you don't see or get to talk to because of life being so busy. Come home each day and see your mailbox filled, we all know how good this makes us feel, especially when it's not bills. Continue Christmas, continue the love, continue thinking of those far away and near people, continue to celebrate. Let's work to not stop something so simple and yet so special, let's watch the contagious smiles arrive, let's not stop something so miraculous. Merry Christmas!