cards

as the holiday season built up through december, i found myself experiencing many obvious firsts. i got my own first christmas tree. i decorated our apartment for christmas for the first time. it wasn't until a week before christmas that i realized one of the most telling firsts, though. i was getting christmas cards. from my friends.

when i was growing up, there was a noticable increase in the mail my mom recieved around christmas. cards started to arrive in the middle of december and she would hang them around the house. there were a fair amount of cards where i knew the sender. the friends she saw every week sent her a note, as well as the family we were going to see for a christmas celebration. it seemed the majority of the cards came from the friends she had known for most of her life.

i had met or heard of some of these people, but there were plenty i had never known of other than christmas card. these cards would have letters or pictures detailing the latest in their lives. as a teenager, i couldn't quite understand these relationships because i couldn't relate to the kind of friendship that meant getting a christmas card once a year. yet seeing those cards was a part of one of those standard stages of coming of age -- realizing my parents had lives before children.

and now, getting my own christmas cards from my own friends who i see once or twice a year seems to be another step in my coming of age. while i can't start to imagine what it is like to be 40 years old and catch up with a friend i had in my twenties, i understand that the friends i have now have been incedibly important to me and even if it is just a card once a year, i still want to hear from them.

as i read a card from one of my friends, it dawned on me the gravity of having christmas card friends. not only does it mean that i will keep in touch with these people via the christmas card for a long time, it means that in 20 years i will be updating these people on my life. what will my christmas cards in 20 years even say?