e-Greetings

Merry Christmas! Happy Hannukah! 

This is my official warm and heartfelt e-greeting to you this year. Having faithfully written and mailed out 30-plus years of cards, I'm done. Facebook, email and this blog have rendered the need for cards obsolete.

Because of the Internet, I am in the lives of friends a little bit here and a little bit there all year long, not just at Christmas. I love that. There's a continuity of news rather than a December avalanche of "Aunt Maude's gall bladder operation didn't go as well as expected" and photographs of the dogs.

Of course, there are two exceptions: Honey's Mom, who will be 90 soon, and my aunt, who will be 95 in February. (If you're in your tenth decade, you get a card.) 

So, feeling lighter and liberated with this two cards only decision, I ducked into a store this afternoon to spend a little time rifling through the inventory.

And what to my wandering eyes did appear but box upon box of astonishingly ugly Christmas cards. Breathtakingly ugly. Ugly dogs chewing Santa hats. Candles a horrendous shade of puce. Black landscapes. Really scary Santas. Cats stuck in Christmas trees. That puce color over and over. When did Christmas card artists start playing "You think that's ugly? Top this!"

Now I realize if I were to shop at, say, Papyrus, I probably would find several lovely holiday choices. But I would have to drive to Oak Brook and spend a smallish fortune on something that ultimately will be pitched, hopefully recycled.

I did manage to find one box slightly less frightening than the rest. There are 14 cards, so I'm good to go until 2017.

PS The No "L" card was not what I purchased today. It was made by a talented local card maker. Santa was glommed from the glorious world wide web.