I got an email a few days ago from a long-time friend. Since we moved from Texas to Wisconsin last year, our address changed. He’d sent out holiday greetings to us, and his card had come back “Return to Sender.”
As is typical of him, he found some humor in this. Though it was good to find out we had moved (one of the important services provided by the U.S. Postal Service), he thought a riff on why we send cards to friends and relatives at the end of the year would get some chuckles. His pitch was, “We do it to find out who has moved in the course of the year.”
There’s a lot of validity to that. Most of us are reasonably busy in our daily lives. The comings and goings of our friends, particularly those who don’t live in our local community, fade away as the years go on. We don’t call, we may not text or email. Sometimes we stay in touch on Facebook.
For those who use Facebook, we should be up on transition in the lives of our friends. If a person moves, they can post the new address, so finding out about someone’s new location is totally dependent on that person updating his social media links.
It’s also dependent on the other person actually being plugged into the same tools. Sometimes, the sites one person spends hours wasting time on are the sites that his best friend has no idea existed.
I remember a conversation 3-4 years ago with a friend of mine I’d been trying to reach through home phone, cell phone and email. It was ridiculous. No response to any of my communications.
At some point, he finally responded to an email, and he said something to the effect that he basically only communicated with people through Facebook and that was the best way to reach him. Huh? I was flabbergasted. We didn’t communicate much after that.
The friend of mine who suggested one of the important things about sending Christmas cards is getting new addresses and finding out who moved last year has a great point. He is not that plugged into the tools of modern technology, instead preferring to meet people for coffee, go fishing, send an occasional email or place a call the old fashioned way to catch up and tell a few jokes. Now there’s a lost art (who tells jokes any more?).
So, for him, and probably for a lot of other people, when you send a card out, and it comes back with the yellow stamp for a new address from the post office, you think, “Whoa, where did Freddie Frabnats move last year? What the heck is up with him?”
Now it gets interesting. You wonder what the heck is going on in the other person’s life. What led to the move? Did he or she retire? Is there a family crisis? Did the job market implode in the previous area he lived? Is she retiring?
The list of questions is endless. But it’s the Christmas card that led to you getting the answers. One little stamp and sending a photo or a note, and you can catch up on all the good, boring, mundane and fantastic things going on in others’ lives.
That could be why he keeps sending cards. I don’t know. I didn’t send any this year. We moved. I’m busy. Maybe I’ll get around to it next week, and see how many addresses get rejected.
As is typical of him, he found some humor in this. Though it was good to find out we had moved (one of the important services provided by the U.S. Postal Service), he thought a riff on why we send cards to friends and relatives at the end of the year would get some chuckles. His pitch was, “We do it to find out who has moved in the course of the year.”
There’s a lot of validity to that. Most of us are reasonably busy in our daily lives. The comings and goings of our friends, particularly those who don’t live in our local community, fade away as the years go on. We don’t call, we may not text or email. Sometimes we stay in touch on Facebook.
For those who use Facebook, we should be up on transition in the lives of our friends. If a person moves, they can post the new address, so finding out about someone’s new location is totally dependent on that person updating his social media links.
It’s also dependent on the other person actually being plugged into the same tools. Sometimes, the sites one person spends hours wasting time on are the sites that his best friend has no idea existed.
I remember a conversation 3-4 years ago with a friend of mine I’d been trying to reach through home phone, cell phone and email. It was ridiculous. No response to any of my communications.
At some point, he finally responded to an email, and he said something to the effect that he basically only communicated with people through Facebook and that was the best way to reach him. Huh? I was flabbergasted. We didn’t communicate much after that.
The friend of mine who suggested one of the important things about sending Christmas cards is getting new addresses and finding out who moved last year has a great point. He is not that plugged into the tools of modern technology, instead preferring to meet people for coffee, go fishing, send an occasional email or place a call the old fashioned way to catch up and tell a few jokes. Now there’s a lost art (who tells jokes any more?).
So, for him, and probably for a lot of other people, when you send a card out, and it comes back with the yellow stamp for a new address from the post office, you think, “Whoa, where did Freddie Frabnats move last year? What the heck is up with him?”
Now it gets interesting. You wonder what the heck is going on in the other person’s life. What led to the move? Did he or she retire? Is there a family crisis? Did the job market implode in the previous area he lived? Is she retiring?
The list of questions is endless. But it’s the Christmas card that led to you getting the answers. One little stamp and sending a photo or a note, and you can catch up on all the good, boring, mundane and fantastic things going on in others’ lives.
That could be why he keeps sending cards. I don’t know. I didn’t send any this year. We moved. I’m busy. Maybe I’ll get around to it next week, and see how many addresses get rejected.