I
finished addressing the envelope for the card I’d just signed. Then I needed to put a stamp in the upper right-hand corner of the envelope. Santa smiled up at me. Using Christmas stamps in March, I thought, is a reminder that I planned to send out a Christmas letter this year and never got around to it. I wondered what kind of a message that stamp would give the recipient of my card. Would she even notice? Would she realize that I was a procrastinator? Or think that I was thrifty because I used the stamps I already had instead of buying new ones?
I thought back to the previous Christmas. What was it that kept me so busy that I didn’t write my annual Christmas letter? How many years now had I failed to write that letter? I thought about my friends. One of them skips the whole idea of a Christmas letter filled with notes about her family that everyone skims over and files away for later. She writes her annual letter in January.
Another friend skips the “I need to send Christmas cards” tradition and sends her cards out for Valentine’s Day. She also skips the whole shopping for the right card routine because she’s an artist. Every year she creates a new card and has it printed on a postcard. We all thoroughly enjoy her wonderful cards.
Now I contemplate my future actions. Should I write that annual letter now and file it away for December? That brings another set of questions to my mind. Will the news be stale in December and have to be written again before I send it out early in the month of December? Will I remember in December that I wrote my annual letter in March? Will I remember where I filed it on my computer? Will I have to buy new Christmas stamps because I used up my previous supply?
I peel off the backing and place Santa on the envelope. There. One stamp is as good as another. I mentally file away my annual Christmas letter contemplations. I’ll think about it later.