I was taught the fine art of gingerly opening a Christmas present so not to disturb the wrapping...if, and only if, it was a cool design, of course. No, we didn't do this because our mother was a crazy hoarder or forced us to dress up as Christmas presents and parade around the neighborhood (that would come much, much later in life), but my mother believed in repurposing beautiful things like wrapping paper (I won't say anything about re-gifting the items underneath the paper, that also would come much, much later). This year, after decorating four trees in our house, I sat back to enjoy my hard holiday work and noticed something quite disturbing...I am missing ornaments!! In fact, enough to decorate two more trees! How could this happen? I like to think..well, I HOPE I am pretty organized, so how could I, a self-proclaimed organized freak lose two entire trees worth of ornaments? Well, the search started before the eggnog was sipped and all I found were two plastic Target bins filled with old Christmas cards. And I started thinking..Am I really obligated to keep the photo of my college roommates kid from four years ago? Is it necessary to hold onto a card of the weird aging family friend who wears stretch pants, smells like moth balls and always sends a photo of herself licking her dogs face?? And then I came across some great, old cards and a lightbulb went off..I had leaned on my remote Christmas light switch by accident...but it gave me an idea. I've always loved flipping through the pages of my old yearbooks, so why not start a card chain with great old cards? Here's how it works as you roll your eyes and I dot my "t's"...
CARD ATTACK:
One example of the cool cards I stumbled upon is from my niece, Devin. She sent it five years ago and I've held onto it four five moves and, now, six holidays. I grabbed it and jotted down a little message to Devin about our holiday this year and a quick blurb about this years happenings...in less than two sentences, mind you..none of this, "our dog learned how to poop outside this year and our brilliant daughter married a billionaire" crap. Guess what? NO ONE CARES. But, it is fun to see what you might sent years ago and keep that conversation going. I've included a separate note with Devin's card explaining my "Christmas Yearbook" idea and hope that next year Devin will send it back to me. For another cousin who sends photos of her babies (now approaching adolescence) I decided to make a scrapbook page of the cards she's sent over the years and send it to them as a holiday card. At a time of year when we often forget what really matters...and, no, it isn't the latest iPad...it's nice to think outside the gift box from time to time.
