How many people do you know who keep old Christmas cards? Last summer, in a rare mood and feeling rather proud of myself for cleaning out, I threw out the precious cards I had saved for 35 years. Today I'd like to see them once more.
Some of my earliest memories of Christmas include the cards my parents sent and received. Mother always displayed the wealth of remembrances on our mantle. The overflow went into baskets. Many baskets.
Everyone we knew sent cards. The first arrived in late November, right after Thanksgiving and before we could even think of "getting out the Christmas things". Others were mailed, ours included, the day before Christmas. "That counts, doesn't it?" we would assure ourselves as we dropped them in the mailbox.
Today a card is an investment. So is postage. Some friends are strapped for time. Others money. Still others are celebrating the season in celestial realms. Not many cards arrive, making the ones that the postman brings even more precious to us.
Happy day! This day a card arrived from Frank and Janet, my longtime American neighbors in England who bravely moved home to San Francisco six summers ago. Seeing the familiar handwriting, I am sadly reminded that I'll never again have the privilege of popping over to share newly picked Cotswold strawberries.
The card, though it boasts a winter scene painted by Grandma Moses, floods my heart with memories of gracious summer luncheons and candlelit dinner parties, travels in William, the middle aged Bentley, tempting treasures in England's auction houses, sweet chats about this and that, gardens, flowers, antiquities, pubs, a sleeping fox, and opera...most of all, opera.
I treasure the card. Not for the photo. There isn't one. Not for the artist's view of yesteryear, enjoyable as it may be. But for the sweetest of memories. For the friends I hold dear. God bless you, Frank. God bless you, Janet.
Merry Christmas!
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