Christmas Cards

I've had lots of people wish me a Merry Christmas over the internet, and have sent similar wishes to others. I plan to send a few Christmas e-cards, too.

But I still love getting the old-fashioned, hard copy cards. I'm glad to have received some of those, though not as many as I used to get. And I didn't send as many as I used to, either.

Hundreds of years ago it could take months for letters people sent to arrive. Sometimes they never did get to their destinations since they had to be carried by people who happened to be travelling to the destinations. If someone moved across th ocean to America from China or Europe, the people where they came from might never hear from them again.

In the early California people got mail by pony express, and then by train, but it was expensive to send. Getting a letter from someone back east was a big deal.

When the US Postal Service was developed, letters were much easier to send and receive, and Christmas cards became popular.

But it took several days or even a week for them to arrive.

Today we communicate over the internet and people might read our messages in a matter of seconds.

Maybe in the future we'll all have brain implants and communicate by thought waves. But then the govrnment could read our minds and... (Okay, my writerly imagination is at it again.)

I still love getting the old fashioned Christmas cards, but if you read this and I haven't sent one to you, please accept this as my way to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

You've Got Mail

I still haven't finished sending all my Christmas cards, but I've already gotten quite a few. I'm referring to the old fashioned kind sent by snail mail, but I'll probably plenty of get e-cards, too.

The cards have made me think about the history of mail. In the 1500s when the first settlers came to America many of them probably never heard from friends they'd left behind in Europe again. If they did write letters to people from their past the mail would have been be carried by ship, then taken to the people's addresses. Some probably never arrived. By the time those people wrote back and the mail was transported to this continent and someone brought it to the person it was intended for, months would have passed.

Later mail was carried between American towns by horseback or in wagons. Benjamin Franklin became the first Postmaster General in 1775. Sending mail through the postal service was very expensive back then, so few people could afford to do it, If people knew someone who was traveling they'd often ask them to carry a letter to someone.

The telegraph was invented and wires were laid across the Atlantic to Europe in the mid 1800s and the Pony Express allowed people to communicate at distances in the West after 1860.

In the 1880s mail service became more efficient and the first Christmas cards were sent then.

Back in the 1940s when I was a kid we could mail cards and letters to family and friends on the other side of America and expect them to be delivered  in about a week.

Now when we send e-cards the delivery takes a few seconds, but I still prefer the old fashioned kind of Christmas cards.

Christmas Cards

Yes, I know people say Christmas cards will soon be replaced by e-cards. Yes, I admit I sometimes send e-cards to people myself. Yes, addressing a lot of envelopes does take some time. And, yes, buying the cards and paying for postage can cost quite a bit.

But...

I don't believe Christmas cards will become extinct, at least not in the near future.

There's something about opening the envelopes and holding greetings from close friends and family, especially people we haven't seen in a while, that means more than clicking on an electronic message. And displaying Christmas cards helps decorate homes for the holidays in a way that reminds us of people we love and the history we have with them.

So I may send e-cards to internet friends, people whose snail-mail addresses I don't have, and some acquaintances, but I'll be sure to send at least a few traditional cards to people who share my memories and are close to my heart.