The Last Christmas Card

This was the last family Christmas card we sent out. It said, "Warm Greetings from Kwaj," and was taken around 2007.  That is why we all look so young and thin.  Up until then, Christmas cards were very much part of our holiday festivities.  This was before Facebook, and I looked forward to getting in touch with friends and family around the world through cards and letters. Since then, getting the family to pose for a picture has proved near impossible, and I would be hard pressed to find postage stamps and addresses. And I understand why I no longer receive any.  My address has changed 4 times since then, and if I don't have you on my phone, you won't be hearing from me. 

I found the old card in my basement, while looking for some old decorations that must have been boxed up and moved one too many times. What got me thinking about the old custom of sending and receiving cards was my daily commute to work.  The fresh snow blankets the fields and the bare trees glisten with frost.  The sun rise adds warm pinks and purples to the landscape.  And at night the farm houses look so inviting with trimmed trees and lit windows. I know I am going home to a house with a twinkling tree and a burning fire in the grate.  If I turn the radio to classical carols, my drive is the next best thing to a sleigh ride! Then I arrive at school where children beam with anticipation and set to work making their own decorative cards.  It is better than receiving a Christmas card... it is being part of a Christmas card!

The season, with all its traditions, is a brilliant reminder of joy.  The joy of anticipation, the joy of the doing, the joy of remembering.  These thoughts are best captured in my favorite episode of 'Call the Midwife':

"At times the present seems most perfect when its seeds lie in the past and at other times life is rendered flawless as we look towards the future, glimpsing from within one golden moment, all the joys days to come might hold... We cannot stand still because the world keeps turning.  Every year gives way to the next and its stories must be folded and tucked away, like children's clothes, outgrown, cherished and never quite forgotten."

The joy of Christmas helps us to look back with fondness, while we look forward with excitement to new dreams,  jobs, travels and memories.

Although we are repeating an age old tradition, let's remember that Christmas is all about new birth, and new life! 

It's Christmas. My wish is that you look at this time of year as if you were a child. (Below: Me, aged 10, and Sheila in Brasilia)