Greeting cards
I have a half bushel of greeting cards. “Wait a minute!” I hear you say: “Greeting cards are not measured by volume!” Well, no, you’re right; normally they’re measured individually, three to five dollars apiece, depending. Actually I don’t know exactly. I haven’t bought any in years… except for this half bushel. It was at a yard sale, quite cheap: five dollars for enough cards to last me a lifetime. They were all lined up in plastic bags with zippers, labeled by holiday or subject; some of them quite old, vintage, not to say, antique. Some are turning sepia, and several have brown spots from having something spilled on them in the dim past, like freckles. The people getting rid of them were older adults, probably emptying out their aunt’s house; she, the aunt, probably sent cards for every occasion. People did, in the mid-20th century.
I was born at the peak of card-sending, I think, the 1970s. Email came along in my teens and supplanted cards almost entirely by my adulthood. I am glad. I don’t mind the lack. Occasionally I will receive a heartfelt card with a real handwritten thoughtful compliment. It warms my heart. Sometimes I receive a card with a check in it; less often, now that my father has passed away.
Christmas cards still come from those family members and friends who still send them. I don’t. When we moved to Akron, Ohio, my husband felt we had arrived; we bought a house. He was general manager in a trendy restaurant. We even received a housewarming gift from a higher social class; it was not a meal or help moving boxes, but something decorative: a cut-glass bowl. For a couple years there we did Christmas cards. It was a whole production, an assembly line. We typed up a short precis of what we had done that year and printed umpteen copies. My husband bought a gross of cards with envelopes. We signed each one, and the children who were old enough put their names in each. We sifted through our correspondence to find addresses for family members and friends. Our children folded the copies, put signed cards into envelopes, applied stamps and return address labels. I printed clearly each recipient’s address on each envelope, a tedious and particular job. My husband carried the stacks of cards to the post office; the mail carrier wouldn’t pick up that many from our house. It cost a fortune in postage, at a time when our weekly date amounted to a shared milkshake on the porch after children went to bed.
My mother sent cards; it was how you kept up with people pre-internet. There was a whole etiquette to it, especially if you received a gift. Thanks must be sent, favors recognized, get-well cards for illness, congratulations for life events, condolences for funerals. Most holidays did not rate a card, in her book; Christmas and birthdays did. She sent cards religiously after I left home. She told me how she had a list of all her children’s and grandchildren’s birthdays. She sent cards at the start of each month to all the ones born in that month. Seven children, their spouses, and forty grandchildren add up; she did not send money. I was an exception after my husband passed away. Several family members sent me money, and my parents continued up until my dad passed away last year.
I bought this box of cards after my children started moving out. I thought, I will occasionally send a card, and I need some thank yous and get-well cards. I do send a card now and then, or slip one into a present bag. It’s easier now that I have a box of them ready to hand. I bought stamps, and the occasional fundraising letter from a children’s hospital or veteran’s organization will have a sheet of complimentary address labels in it. I’ve never bought address labels, not even back in Akron. We had been given enough to put on all our cards.
