A Christmas Card Exchange

We send out a few Christmas cards….fewer every year, I  fear.  One goes to an old childhood friend and her husband.   She and I grew up together; our parents were good friends.  She was an important part of my life.

As is often the case, we grew apart as family, work and life put us on different parts of the map.

But for as long as I can remember, she and her husband sent Christmas cards.  Regularly and early.  You could set your calendar for their card, with wonderful handwritten updates, always arriving three or four days after Thanksgiving.

But things have changed as they so often do.

They stopped the Christmas card thing several years ago and I miss that terribly but for one important saving grace.

Every year, about ten days after they’ve received our card, I receive a “typewritten” letter from her husband.  We’re talking ribbons, clunky, noisy keys and 20 pound engraved stationery here.  And, may I add, nary a mistake nor a white-out-ed letter to be found.

His letters are magnificent things to behold and to read.  They are treasures that I eagerly await until they are safely in my mailbox and then in my hands.  I’ve kept every one of them.

He writes elegantly about their lives, their thoughts, their hopes and expectations.  I find myself reading his beautiful, personal and error-less prose over and over again.

I try to engage him in further written correspondence during the year but he’ll have none of that.  He’s set his boundaries and isn’t about to step over them.

So, I wait.  Each year.

I only have one month to go.