Unexpected greeting cards.

While email is fast, convenient and often practical, it isn’t quite as charming as traditional post. I sometimes wonder what kind of a world it would be if we didn’t have the option of conveying messages electronically. It would be a slower world for sure. But would it also be a world filled with more excitement, thrills and surprises? Would it be a more personalised world? A world where having to wait for something, even something small, would enhance the joy of finally receiving it?

This Christmas, one of my personal missions was to send greeting cards to three people who would have never expected to hear from me. And of course, the plan was to send these cards by post- the good old ‘stamp licking’ and ‘waiting in the never-ending post office queue’ kind.

I must say it was quite a challenge trying to find their addresses. Of course, I could have just emailed them to ask. But that seemed like a gross contradiction to my old-fashioned approach. And of course, a perfect way to ruin the surprise. After several hours of Facebook scavenging and making random (not to mention, slightly awkward) phone calls to common friends and friends-of-friends, I had the addresses. It was surprising to learn that none of them were in the countries where I had first met them, several years ago.

So I bought the cards and as usual, failed miserably at my attempt to write ‘brief’ messages. I rambled on with lengthy updates, eager questions and lots of well-meant wishes. And at the end, I included my current postal address, thereby suggesting that a thank-you message by email would simply not suffice. I also underlined my postal address in bold red, hopefully implying that I would kill them if they didn’t send me the hand-written reply I expected.

As I walked home from the post office later that day, I was thoroughly pleased at the thought of my friends in different corners of the world browsing through bills, bank statements, advertising pieces and other items that are usually stuffed into one’s letterbox, and then suddenly finding a Christmas card from a faraway friend.