Christmas Car(d)nage

 I love sending Christmas cards. I hate sending Christmas cards. My (non)system for Christmas cards is so ridiculously chaotic, I keep telling myself I need to amend it, and yet I do not.

I assume the normal way to do Christmas cards is to buy a box of Christmas cards for that year, or order a certain number of a pre-printed card with family photos? I am bad with tech and for some reason I don't want to send the same thing to everyone, so instead I buy any box of cards that catches my fancy near Christmas or after Christmas. Then I sit at my table with a giant varied pile of Christmas cards and look at my list of addresses and sort of go by vibes on which person gets which card.

And the photos. Do I narrow it all down to one great family pic, or put three or four varied ones on a card? Ha ha ha ha no of course not. I get a selection of wallet photos printed and then again, based on which members of my nuclear or extended family the card receiver is familiar with, I pick a few relevant photos. 

It's DUMB. The past couple of years the photos have gotten here late, this year I can't even remember where I ordered them from so I can't even track the order. I also always have way too many, so if you get a Christmas card from me it will be full of small random pictures from last year or three years ago or ten years ago - feel free to throw them out, at least this way I don't have to. 

I also like to keep one card from every kind of card I send. 

Clearly I am a fan of the stylized triangular Christmas tree. I also like the Little House in a Dark Woods theme, or anything with snow.

Some of the quirkier choices. 

I have mostly stopped buying cards with glitter. I am like a magpie, but it's annoying for other people and probably not great for the environment. 

I am of the firm opinion that Christmas card envelopes should be red. Unfortunately I often forget about this when buying the actual cards, or the design of the card persuades me that it's worth the trade-off. But seriously. They should be red. 

I started writing and addressing cards Friday night without organizing anything, in the midst of an insane allergy attack. I got ten done, but it was not a joyous experience. Today, for the first time in many years I actually took everything out of the Christmas card bag and the Christmas card box I haul all the stuff around and separated out the cards I am keeping, the cards I can send, address labels and, oh look, on the plus side sometimes I discover a forgotten treasure trove of stamps.

Score!

Everything is sorted into old Christmas card boxes, and I feel quite a bit more serene sitting down to do the rest, except for the part that my system is still kind of bonkers. And with Canada Post still doing rotating strikes, a lot of them are probably going to be late, which is fine, I guess (it's NOT FINE, I don't WANT them to be late, *stamps foot*) 

Oh well. For a change, the snow started hours after my husband got home rather than minutes after he left (he's been gone three weeks out of the past four, I should perhaps begin calling him my 'occasional lodger' instead). 

The tree in the wreath ornament from my last post is from All Through the Night, a crafter that makes figures out of cotton muslin which are then sprayed with an adhesive. They are at a craft show I go to every year, and my mom has bought many of the angels for Eve which I will photograph when I get to that box. I had already made a purchase one year and then saw the wreath and had to make another purchase because I had to have it.