I am not sure how many people my age actually write Christmas cards these days. Christmas was never a religious holiday to me, nor any special holiday at all. I don’t remember my mother ever making a fuss about Christmas or new years eve and I was always grateful for that.
I was never forced to believe in Santa Claus or anything I didn’t feel seem even remotely possible. The idea of Santa Claus actually frightened me a lot and I was always grateful my mother never forced such ideas on me as I was growing up. She encouraged me to think for myself and question everything – even things like Santa Claus or the tooth fairy.
I do remember pretending to believe in the tooth fairy because I wanted the money, but I didn’t fool my mother in the end and she simply gave me money in exchange for the tooth. I was perfectly happy with that, because I didn’t have to make a big deal or pretend to sleep with a tooth under the pillow. It was a fair and satisfactory exchange in my opinion and I didn’t feel cheated at all because of the lack of pretence. I would have disliked all that stuff – especially as a child. I was a lot less forgiving of anything I considered foolishness back then.
Now, I enjoy foolishness, oddly enough. I still think things like Santa Claus and the tooth fairy are really creepy. Why do children like the idea of old people breaking into their houses and leaving stuff behind? Nope. I don’t like anyone breaking into my home, not even to leave behind presents or money.
In any case, I never considered myself someone who dislikes or loves Christmas. It was just something other people were really interested in and I sort of tried to ignore. Then, a couple of years back, I was living in Japan for the first time and my already limited social interaction with friends and family back home all but disappeared. I drifted apart from many and it was a surprise to me.
I had always assumed that when you are friends time is not relevant, but I was very wrong about that. People seem to need regular interaction to feel close, but since I never experienced the so-called connection that people always speak of, the idea that regular interaction was a necessity never occurred to me.
To me, friendship seemed like a choice and no matter how long passed between interactions, the choice to remain friends was always the same. We got to know each other once, right? So, if a long time pass and I meet a friend again and both of us have changed, why not get to know each other again? It seems little more than a choice.
When I was living in Japan the thought to write Christmas cards to some family members back home seemed like a way to show them I cared and I knew some in my family would really appreciate the gesture. So, I bought a few cards and sent them home. A few of my closer relations got a Japanese snack or some tea as well, since the card on its own felt a little boring.
Some didn’t care at all, of course, but quite a few seemed extremely happy about the cards. So, when I was back home the next year, I decided to send Christmas cards to some friends I had met during my days abroad. I had lost almost all my friends and was completely isolated in my home – a home country that felt increasingly unfamiliar and distant.
Perhaps it was the loneliness, perhaps it was the reverse culture-shock, perhaps it was all the bad memories everywhere I looked or perhaps I had simply changed and had assumed that change would only affect me and not the way I saw my home country. I don’t know. What I do know is that I didn’t want to lose those special people I met abroad and I had no idea how to express my gratitude for them and my appreciation of their friendship.
I decided to send them Christmas cards and add a little bag of tea as well. I wrote a few words, writing Christmas cards is even today a difficult task for me to do, and sent them off without knowing how they would be received.
Not everyone cared. That would obviously be the case. Some, however, were very happy – especially because no one really sends letters or cards very often now. But, in the end, what really mattered to me was that I felt good. I felt like writing the cards had been a way to truly show that people mattered to me. It’s not like I love every aspect of writing a card – especially not those first years I wrote them. I hated it, in fact. I never knew what to write.
What makes me enjoy the process now is several things. Let’s take them chronologically, shall we?
Firstly, I simply enjoy getting the cards themselves. I like looking for the right cards, the right little things to send with them and sometimes I look for cute stickers or something to add a more personal touch. I like the process of creating something – even if it’s just a Christmas card.
Secondly, I like that it makes me think about the people in my life. I think about all the people in my life, both those I am close to and those I am not so close to. You see, I used to just be friends with anyone who wanted to be friends without any thought as to whether or not I cared or even liked that person myself.
I was so desperate to have a friend I didn’t care who it was. I care now, though. I don’t want people in my life who make my life worse, who abuse me or mistreat me. I want to choose the people I have in my life, and even though it may seem silly to think about these things regularly, I honestly enjoy taking the time every Christmas to think about the people in my life. Sure, sometimes I have doubt about people for a very long time before I am sure whether or not I want them in my life – it can take weeks, months or even years, but in my opinion, it is an important thing to do.
Now, it’s not just an opportunity to remove people from my life I don’t link them (I have yet to figure out how to do that, but I tell myself that if someone doesn’t treat me well, this gives me the chance to find out in case I don’t notice. Impossible as it may sound, I don’t always realise when people treat me badly or abuse my trust.) and honestly, I have never really figured out how to actually remove a bad influence from my life intentionally. It only ever happens naturally and then later, once the influence is gone, I realise how I was treated wrongly.
Writing Christmas cards also gives me the chance to appreciate all the good people I have in my life. I have a friend in Japan, for example, an even though I almost never get to talk to him his friendship truly means a lot to me. He is someone I would truly hate to lose. I have friends in other places too, and again, even though we don’t get to meet or talk very often, it is people that are important to me and people I hope to meet again one day. People I feel grateful to have met.
I also get to think about my family. I have always felt strange about my family, never really felt like I fit in with them and it always seemed like they never really knew what to do with me. Writing these cards gives me an opportunity to remind myself about all the things I like about them, even if they have hurt me during the year.
I don’t see my fathers side of the family a lot, in fact I almost never see them, and it always made me very sad. I may not always agree with my family or like their actions or political views, but they are my family and, as selfish as it may sound, I don’t want to be all alone. I don’t want to lose my entire family. Reminding myself what I like about them makes me feel grateful and happy about my family – at least for a while.
Every card that I write is me taking the time to think about that person, appreciate that person and write a few lines to them. I write nothing special, simply whatever was on my mind when I was thinking about them.
I used to hate writing the text, because I never knew what to write. I never understood the social rules or expectations that came with Christmas cards, so for the first many years I wrote a standard text (pretty much only “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.”) on every single card. In time, however, I realised people wrote more intimate things back when I received cards from them. They would write little personal anecdotes or something nostalgic about the times we shared. I realised that people like it when you write especially to them. So, it became even more difficult, because I had no idea what stories were appropriate for Christmas cards.
To be entirely honest with you, I still don’t know what I should write. Writing the card itself, however, has become something I enjoy. I love writing and these little cards are an opportunity to put down in words the feelings and thoughts I have about the people in my life, to tell them in my own way that they matter to me.
I am so bad at expressing myself verbally – well, I am bad at expressing myself in every way possible, but when I write I feel more confident that I have come as close as possible to what I actually intended to convey.
Another thing is, it teaches me to be less of a perfectionist. I used to struggle and write so many drafts simply because every time I made a mistake I would re-do the card. Now, I tell myself that I get one chance and that’s it. So, I think for longer and then I take my time to write. Very often I make mistakes, but I accept them and move on.
Of course, once in a while I make a mistake so bad I have to re-do it, but it doesn’t happen very often. Mostly, I just make silly mistakes that no one would really notice. I notice, but other people? Nah. They probably don’t. They notice some things, but mostly it’s just me being too focussed on the details. I sometimes need to remind myself that there is no perfect letter or perfect conversation, that the important thing is not to do something flawlessly, but to do something.
I have to say, I love that I have created this tradition for myself. I enjoy so many different aspects of writing these cards and hopefully my intention to show people that I care about them is not lost on them.
I am sure they think I don’t care about them some of the time, because I don’t express myself very well – especially expressing “care” for other beings is so very difficult for me, whenever I actually do, it is mostly by chance and not intention. Again, it is not that I don’t care, because I do. It’s that expressing the feeling is difficult, and in that way, something practical and real like writing a card makes me feel like I am at least doing what I can to show people how much they matter to me.
