As i started to write this, I began to think, “This will most likely be my LEAST agreed with post yet…”

So here we are…  a week before Christmas… and I have received three Christmas cards in the mail…   They are sweet, nice Christmas cards sent by people who believe strongly in the idea of manners and tradition.

I remember 20 years ago when I got closer to 100 Christmas cards.  It was almost part of the rights of passage as an adult: You grow up.  You go to college.  You move out of the house.  You get an address book.  You send Christmas cards.

I remember being a kid, and some time in October we’d get all dressed up for Christmas .  Had to sit on a fireplace hearth.  Had to get my brother smiling… the dog facing forward… the cat not looking like he was trying to run away…  Hair curled appropriately, knees together…  all so that we looked like the perfect Norman Rockwell kids in the picture that was going to be sent to friends and family.  I remember Mom agonizing about the thought that she had to write a personal note to put in each card.

The next incarnation was the Christmas letters… Oh how I LOOOOOOOOOOVE Christmas letters.  C’mon… those things are funny!!!  Relatives whom you have met twice in your life send you single-spaced, three-page letters about “My year in bowels!”  or “Uncle Stan’s prostate!”

We should have seen it coming!   We should have read the writing on “the wall.”  This was our first step toward social media.  This was the idea that soon we were to get daily updates on Aunt Hattie’s vertigo.

….and I, for one, don’t mind at all.

I read an interesting take on “change” yesterday wherein a long-time acquaintance stated that liberals want change for change’s sake without caring about consequences.  Someone responded that conservatives avoid ALL change even when change is warranted because they live in a world of “that’s how it’s done.”   I think there’s some merit to both arguments… and with change, as with most things, I think the middle makes more sense.

The great thing about blogs is that I can ramble and take forever to get to my point… either you’re still with me, or not.  🙂

My point is that Christmas cards are a thing of the past, and that’s okay.

Once upon a time we lived very close with one another.  All of our relatives were just around the corner, and we celebrated and grieved together.  Then, manifest destiny… or the dust bowl…or whatever happened… and movement started.  Family threw up their hands in despair.  “How will we keep in touch?”  Thus Christmas cards.  People kept in touch.  Families stayed together…(although the older generation and the traditionalists continued to lament:  “They never should have moved at all.”)

But as time went on, there was less and less of hands being thrown in the air and wailing (less lamenting) as the family separated and moved.  It became part of culture… but the tradition of Christmas cards was held dear.  We still wanted to see the families of our loved ones… We still wanted to hear what was going on in life.  It’s still part of human nature to want to feel connection…

And next… came the intrawebs…  and Facebook and Instagram and YouTube and Skype…  and now you get to hear about Uncle Myron’s diverticulitis in REAL time. You feel like you’re practically besties with your cousin Savannah whom you’ve never actually even met.  Christmas cards?  I’ll do you one better…  “Here’s me shopping for Christmas.   Here’s me decorating my dog.  Here’s me cutting out a snowflake.”

What would be the point in a Christmas card?

And to me… that’s not a bad thing.  I am DEFINITELY more in touch now with my Chicago relatives than I EVER was when I got a Christmas card from them every year.  Now, I see their whereabouts pretty much every day.

Who says the OLD traditions are the ones we MUST hold onto to keep the family together?  I say just because it’s the way you did it before is NOT the way you NEED to do it now.

I’m also saying if you LIKE to do it… please do so!   If the choosing of the card is the part of your Christmas tradition that brings you joy, go on and do it…  I’m just saying that it’s not “so sad” that younger generations are moving away from the Christmas card and instead send you a lovely JibJab of you and your cat rockin’ around the Christmas tree.

It’s not “change for change’s sake.”  It’s because the times they ARE a changing… they always have been, and they always will be.