Post-holiday card regrets

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I know there’s no law stating you must send out a holiday card every year. But knowing how fun it is to see how everyone else’s kids are growing, I usually succumb to this holiday pressure.

Tilt your head to view our holiday cards. I've wasted an hour of my life trying to rotate this pic, and have given up!

But this year was different:

• I was slammed with a (very welcome) freelance project.
• My car’s engine light — having been on for nearly a week — finally prompted me to bring it in for some holiday cheer: we now qualify for a brand-new transmission! We struggled all week with the dilemma — do you dump $2,000 into a car worth $3,000?
• For some reason, I felt it was critical to make gifts of chocolate bark with pumpkin seeds, sour dried cherries and roasted pistachios for babysitters, teachers, family and friends.
• Oh yeah, and a triple batch of Swedish pepparkakor with piped icing for my daughter’s Around the World dessert bash at school. (And I’m not even the Swedish one! I’m an American mutt: half English-Irish-Welsh-Scottish-Dutch-German, half Italian-Polish.)
• I had to pack for a cross-country holiday road trip with my family. Emergency kit? Check. Enough food & water to sustain us if we slid into a snowdrift and weren’t dug out for a week? Check. Entertainment options for all? Check. Christmas gifts, including those secret and magical ones from Santa, to remain hidden at all costs? Check. Plenty of darling outfits for my two young girls, who normally prefer the Mismatched & Weather-Inappropriate Collection by Homeless Harry? Check.
• We’ve just lived through a year without a commission check. While we’re very grateful to be gainfully employed while so many people are being laid off and losing all their savings (not to mention their homes), it’s been a bit of an adjustment. So if I’m going to go out of my way to save $1 on laundry detergent, you know I’m going to think twice about spending $200 on holiday cards, postage, etc.

So, I made up my mind not to do the paper cards this year, opting for an e-version instead. And I felt great about it. I consoled myself with the knowledge that I was also making an eco-responsible choice. Such a good, green, tree-hugger I am! (Never mind that it was the bulleted list above that drove my decision. Details!)

The Swenson 2008 E-Card.

But, now home from our long trip, this morning over coffee I had the pleasure of going through our mail from last week. Have you ever read ALL of your Christmas/holiday cards ALL at one time, without stopping? It felt like a trip down memory lane. As I tore open envelopes, saving those with return addresses I thought I might be missing, I held each card and letter — some bright and shiny, others hip and sophisticated, some quite funny — and I thought of each person who had taken the time and effort to send these beautiful greetings to us. One came from a friend who has been battling lymphoma all year, and its good news of remission brought me to tears.

That’s about when the gratitude hit me.

As “The Wonder Pets” blare in the family room for my happy, mismatched girls with bellies full of Honey Nut Cheerios, I am grateful for my family and friends. I am grateful for our beautiful home. I am grateful for my sweet, hard-working husband and best friend of nearly 16 years.

I’m grateful, and I’m looking forward to the new year and all it brings. For at the end of 2009, I get to read what the year has brought to those I love.

And this time, I think I’ll stimulate the economy and send a real, recycled paper card from the Swensons, too.

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Filed under My Nutty Family, SAHM/WAHM, Uncategorized

Tags: family, gratitude, holiday cards