... consists of reporting the effort required to get the annual Christmas Letter in the mail. I am quite pleased with myself, having gotten it done and on its way in record time. Starting with addressing the envelopes in order to know how many copies of the letter I would need to print. When purchasing seasonal stationary in the past, I thought the pack came with one hundred sheets of paper. But last year, when at the office supply store, the shrink wrapped packages with cute holly borders or amusing strings of colorful lights only had eighty sheets. Is that crazy, or what? Yes.
Hoping to not need more than 80, I began address envelopes, long before the letter was actually composed. Finding that there were really fewer than that, so even the skimpy number was sufficient. I got the envelopes ready, stamped, adding return address, and amusing holiday decorations to each. Counted, and decided seventy would be enough (later going for the full eighty). Got them all in the mail last week, to be delivered by the USPS.
I was actually leaving the building at church (where I used the copier) last Wednesday, having folded, with help from a friend, inserted in envelopes and licked them shut. When the mail man came by with his daily delivery. I stood in the parking lot and raised my hand to demonstrate that the 'flag is up' on my invisible mailbox, and gave them directly to the mailman to speed them on their way. Then I thought of several more people who I wanted to inform, so put the last of them in the mail before the end of the week.
All this to say: I bought the envelopes, tediously hand-addressed each one, bought the holiday postage stamps (no licking required), bought the stationary, composed the letter, took it to be copied, paid for the copies, folded the eighty letters, put them in the envelopes, licked the flap, closed them up, handed them to the postman. I decided several years ago I would not send letters reporting on happenings of family members no longer present at my current location. Practicing saying: 'if you want news about them, you need to go to the source.'
After industriously providing all the information in the preceding paragraph, I do not feel compelled to allow the Man Who Lives Here a reading of the Christmas Letter. He can, if he wishes, compose and send out his own version of yearly activities. At some point, I expect he will receive some commentary/feedback from someone who has read The Letter, and wonder: ????
No comments:
Post a Comment