My Aunty Judy texted me to say thanks for the Christmas card. She lives about seven hours southwest of me but I didn’t have to put it in the mail, I was able to send it with Clint when he was down there visiting his parents last weekend.
I sent all of my family’s Christmas cards with him and ended up only putting two in the mail.
One for my childhood best friend in Idaho and the for my Aunty Janice near Calgary, Alberta. It got me thinking about how differently we communicate these days compared to when I was growing up.
Nowadays I rarely walk to a mailbox and drop something in the mail. Three weeks ago it honestly seemed like a big effort to buy stamps and put those two cards in the mail. I couldn’t even remember if, to mail something to the US, did I have to buy a US stamp or could I use Canadian stamps. Turns out you can use Canadian stamps, you just need two of them.
As a kid, it seemed like I used the mail frequently.
One set of grandparents lived in Alberta and my sisters and I would write to them regularly. Of course, we’d wait anxiously for a letter in return from them.
Sending out Christmas cards was a big deal even twenty-four years ago when Bella-Lena was a baby. I probably wrote out addresses and licked stamps on twenty to thirty envelopes. Now I don’t even know where my address book is. When I went to mail them, I simply scrolled back on Facebook Messenger in the chats with my friend in Idaho and Aunty Janice, to last year’s convo where I asked what their mailing addresses were. There it was.
To avoid having to use the mail, I’ve even gone so far as taking a picture of the Christmas card and sending it via FB Messenger to a cousin and said there it is, Merry Christmas. Kind of lame on my part. The conveniences of electronic communication have made me lazy I suppose.
bloom.planted.north 
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