You've Got Mail!

by Anna Campbell

It's that time of year again.

The time of Christmas MAIL!

Oh, man, I'm so tempted to put 'male' there instead but I'm resisting the urge to be silly. We'll see if the resistance lasts, LOL!

Here's a photo of the latest lot going out. I've been a Christmas card-writing factory here over the last few days. And as you can see, I mean the old-fashioned, delivered by the postman, string up along the windows as a decoration kind of Christmas greeting.

I've noticed a trend recently of emailed Christmas cards. Frankly it's always lovely to hear from friends and family, but I've got to say for me nothing replaces the pile of envelopes in the mailbox and the stamps from around the world and the ability to display all the cards on a convenient bench (until the wind starts to blow!) until way after Christmas.

Well, maybe there's one exception to that statement. Each year, I get a couple of gorgeous Jacqui Lawson email cards. They're so romantic and imaginative with music and art and magic combined into a lovely greeting. Right now I'm playing with the Advent Calendar which is set in London and give me such a fun start to each day. I was lucky enough to score one of these last year too. They're gorgeous!

Anyway, this year I got organized earlyand I've done nearly all my overseas cards and a fair slab of the local ones. Each year, I think around the end of November I should do Christmas cards and then tell myself I've got plenty of time. Which means I find myself scrambling to write cards on 23rd December. Not this year.

Well, not so far. Time will tell with the cards I still have left.

For overseas people, I generally pick up something with a pretty Aussie scene on it or some local wildlife. I figure it makes a nice change from Santa and snow and Christmas trees. The nicest ones I've found are from a photographer called Robert Rankin. Beautiful wilderness scenes!

This is my last Tote Bags 'n' Blogs of the year so I'd like to thank Lee for hosting such a wonderful selection of writers and I'd also like to thank all the wonderful readers who popped by to comment on my posts each month. I've loved our conversations. See you next year! And in the meantime, however you celebrate the Festive Season, I hope it's happy, healthy, full of love and laughter, and packed brim full with great books.

So are you an old-fashioned Christmas card person? Or have you taken the digital revolution to heart? Or is it Bah, Humbug to the whole season? LOL!