Christmas Card Patterns

I love Christmas Card Season. I love writing Christmas cards and I love receiving them as well. So…. it turns out I had quite a collection of Christmas cards to sort through with my move. On a year to year basis, you receive the card, you enjoy it and you move on. But when you are presented with roughly nine years of cards, suddenly patterns emerge. Here are a few trends I noted:

Stacy always sends a funny card.

Tony Airaghi always thanks me for my friendship.

Kim Kalten (my old boss’s wife) consistently misspells my name (not a big deal– I don’t mind when people misspell my name).

Whoops, I didn’t realize Kim always misspells my names until I saw cards from multiple years.

June Randolph always tells me how much she misses my grandmother (I miss my grandmother too).

I get a lot of love from my friends’ parents. Brian V’s parents, Brian N’s parents and Stacy’s parents all write wonderfully detailed messages.

A lot of people reuse the same cards from year to year including my grandmother, the Phelps, Virtual IT.

Roanoke-based companies really like that Christmas card that features the Roanoke Star. I had roughly eight of those.

Dave and Monica always include a “Go Hokies!” somewhere in their card.

AE’s mother likes to underline the message in the card for emphasis.

Three years in a row — underlining the message

It was an interesting exercise. And great timing! After a five year hiatus, the St. Jude’s Ranch of Children started accepting recycled card fronts again this summer. So my Christmas cards, or rather the fronts of those cards, have a destination!