It's in the mail...

Among my least favorite chores… checking the mail. I’m not sure why, except for the fact that the mailboxes are around the corner from the house, and whenever I get the mail, a good percentage of it (the junkie stuff anyway) ends up in the floorboard of my van. Why is it that in newer neighborhoods, there is no mailbox at the end of the drive? That was the way we used to get our mail when I was a kid. You remember? The little mailboxes with the red flags? Maybe it’s a small town thing, but now we have the big community mailbox with the individual locked units. You know the one... where you sit in your car until that neighbor that lives two doors down that you don’t much care for gets THEIR mail, and then you do the ‘smiley nod’ thing to them as they pass you. Wow. That might have been too much information. ;)

And my mailman must hate me. I mean, he’s always very friendly to me whenever we happen to cross paths at the mailboxes, but I just know that secretly he wishes that I would check my mail more often than once every two weeks. Well, maybe not so secretly. He’s left a note in there before to let me know that it is too full. But with electronic bill-pay, and being able to access all your accounts on-line, I just forget that there is paperwork piling up in there, and I need to at least pick it up, open it, and leave it on the kitchen counter for a month. Oops… I mean, pick it up, open it, discard the trash, and file the bill neatly in the uber-organized filing cabinet. Yep, THAT’S what I meant.

So, yes, usually I hate to check the mail. Except in December. In December, this month of all mail months, I’m at the mailbox EVERY DAY, waiting for my mailman. Just to see him pull up in his little truck, I practically start bouncing from one foot to the other, as he unloads his little packets of mail. Why?! Two words… Christmas cards.

Oh, Christmas cards… how I love them! I love to send them, to receive them, to look at them, to hang them up and display them, and finally, when the holidays are over, to scrapbook them. Just the pictures I receive, mind you. Because isn’t that what we all love best? The pictures of the new babies? The pictures of the growing kids? The pictures of the vacation? Or the pictures of the new house, or the new puppy, or the new guppies? I do. I love them. I always like to see how my friends and family, both nearby and far-flung, have changed, and what they are up to.

I love the clever cards, the mushy cards, and the ‘cutesy’ cards. I really like getting the ‘newsy’ little family newsletters that people fold up and put in their cards, as well. Well, that is, I usually like them. Occasionally, you get the one that is a detailed account of how everyone has gotten a big job promotion, all the children are in the Gifted and Talented class at school, their dog won Westminster, and their family picture was taken in front of the Eiffel Tower on their month-long vacation. Sorry…not very much in the spirit of the season, but… gag!

So, hope you got my Christmas card, and I’m looking forward to getting yours. If you’ve already sent it, it is being displayed in my home, as we speak. But if it doesn’t get here before Christmas, rest assured that I will pick it up from the mailbox, oh... approximately, the middle of March.