Charity that returned

Julia ♦ December 8, 2021 ♦ 6 Comments

Do you like holiday cards? If so, I’ll send you one!

“All my life I have written letters – to our mother, our relatives, a wide circle of friends and acquaintance, to my husband, to you. Correspondence has always been as necessary to my happiness as a well-cooked dinner, and I’ve found it more sustaining for its generosity: an act of charity that returned to me a hundredfold…” ― Delia Sherman

I’ve always loved sending and receiving personal cards and letters.  I knew things had really changed when I started to dread the mail.  Initially I wrote it off as a sign of advanced adulthood; no more childlike delight at the surprise and connection that came with a letter or card.  I came to realize, though, that my increasing distaste for the mail is really because it has been largely hijacked by the junk, advertising and bills that so outnumber the pleasant things we like to receive.

Since I love sending mail, and because this is the time of year when we have a good excuse to send holiday wishes, I am offering to do my part to increase the amount of wanted versus unwanted mail.  Do you like to get holiday cards?  If so, I’ll be glad to send you one.

Between now and December 18, anyone who leaves me a card request with an address to which I should send it, I will send a holiday card to you.  If you’d rather send your address via email, you can send it to defeatdespair@verizon.net and I’ll get it.  If you know someone who is deployed military, shut in due to illness or aging, incarcerated, or simply lonely and in need of encouragement, I will send them a card too, and say that you told me they might like one (unless you’d rather be anonymous).

Please send an address ONLY for someone you feel certain would not mind having their name and addresses shared.  As always, I will guard the privacy of these addresses as I guard my own.  I will redact your personal info from any comments, and will pledge NOT to use any address for any purpose other than sending a requested card.

And for those of you who prefer the less expensive, earth-friendly, paper-and-privacy saving, anonymous digital variety of greeting, this one is just for you!

This post was first published seven years ago today. The original post, comments and photo are linked, along with two other related posts, below. These links to related posts, and their thumbnail photos, do not appear in the blog feed; they are only visible when viewing the individual posts by clicking on each one. I have no idea why, nor do I know how they choose the related posts. That’s just the way WordPress does things.