Country Gal by Vanita Blundell Dec.19, 2006

Country Gal by Vanita Blundell Dec. 19, 2006
There are two kinds of people in this world -those who send Christmas cards and those who do not. I am one who does not. It is not that I do not like cards it is just that I can never get them in the mail. I can get them purchased, written on, signed, addressed and, yes, even stamped. But, to get them to the mailbox seems to be an impossible task to accomplish. I could lie and tell you it is just Christmas cards that I do not get in the mail; it is all mail in general. I still have Jennifer’s birth announcements to get off. I think that after 25 years that maybe I should take the stamps off and throw them away. Besides most of the people who I was going to send them to, either have moved away or have died. It is somewhat depressing when you think about it.
But Christmas cards are fun to receive. Christmas cards show your personality. Dad always agonized on picking out the right cards. He ordered from the Leaning Tree Company and he chose different cards for different people. Then he and Mom always wrote a little note inside. If he received a card from someone he had not sent one to, he made sure that one would be in the mail to them within a few days. He just loved getting pictures of families and school pictures of kids.
I just love the cards that people send that can make anything-sound good. Such as: a jailed son, has been away for awhile; if a family member is a wanted felon it could read like this- my sister and her family are enjoying living on an exotic island, not mentioning that there is no extradition there. Or when your daughter has gotten the father of her children to marry her it could read like this, our daughter has married the love of her life.
We have received the cards that do the opposite- Everything is doom and gloom. They report every ache, pain, and bad thing that ever happened to them. Instead of telling about a recent marriage of one of their children- they tell that they are having financial problems they had as a result of an over priced wedding that their daughter just had to have when a trip to the judge’s office would accomplish the same result and not drained their finances for the next ten years and they will never get their credit cards paid off. Not mentioning that she was lucky to find a man who loved and adored her. Or they would write about the child who would not leave home and was a parasite who was sucking the life out of them instead of telling about how nice it was to have someone who lived in the house who could help them out and drive them to their numerous doctor appointments. They might tell about their vehicle problems, instead telling about the nice neighbor that helped them out while stranded along the road- they tell about how the car factories cannot produce a good product and the repair cost more than the lousy car was ever worth. They may write about their near death experience, instead of telling about the great care that they received from the hospital staff and the EMT who arrived in just minutes of the call, they tell about how no one ever stays home anymore and they just spread germs and plagues everywhere they go. Instead of telling about having the grandchildren over and playing with them-they tell how tiring the kids were and they are not taught to mind. They are getting just a little bit tired of being a free babysitter.
I get a real kick out of those who love to tell about all of their misfortunes. However, when you think about it- Life is too short to dwell on the bad so I guess I prefer the optimistic to the pessimistic.