We've finished the Christmas cards!

This year my computer failed the day after the night I printed out a draft of the letter and a list of the labels. So we had to hand write the cards, and run the letter through the photocopier looking a bit squiqqly, but they are done earlier than most years. Is that the unintended consequences of technology--you tend to leave it all to the last moment because you've saved a bit of time on the front end? My husband wrote some and I wrote some, and I think some of you who were supposed to get personal notes didn't if your card was addressed by him. He paints; I write.

I suppose the day will come when no one sends cards--sort of like calling cards in days of the early 20th century. My daughter and nieces still send cards, but now most of them are 40 or over and they aren't the young generation anymore, except in my mind. Do 25 year olds send Christmas cards? But I love getting the cards and photocopied letters--all the trips, the theater, the opera, the hikes and picnics, the photographs of oodles of grandbabies, and now great-grands. And of course, at my age, many of the letters contain news of terrible losses and illnesses, or sadly come with only one name when for years there were two.

As I addressed a card to a first cousin once removed (daughter of an Illinois first cousin) who lives here in Columbus on the far east side I was reminded again that I've only seen her once, in 1993 at a family reunion. I last saw her parents at my mother's funeral in 2000. I've watched her kids grow up on Christmas cards, and learn about her brothers and sisters and their children through her once a year notes. Some years I hear from her parents, some I don't.