If you are in a long-term relationship of any kind (and especially if you’re over the age of 60), please – for the love of all that is holy and good – please obtain some return address labels that have both of your names on them. That way, when you send a Christmas card to someone you only hear from when you exchange Christmas cards, the recipient won’t start crying when they see only your name on the address label and think that your SO must have died.
I know it’s too late for 2005, but please keep this in mind for next year’s cards.
I doubt that there’s any reason to believe in some secret address-label code used to announce a death. I have labels in my name only (we’re married, but have different surnames) because Mr. S just doesn’t really get all that involved with the mail.
I’m reminded of the time I used a subject line of “Weep with me” on a post to my freelancers’ e-mail list, and then proceeded to share some particularly horrible passage of text that I had to edit (as in, “I weep for the future”). One person wrote and said she thought my husband had died. Give me a break.
Well, the crying bit was an exaggeration. But both times I did, for a split second, wonder if someone had died and I wasn’t aware of it – I didn’t even read the cards right away, just skipped to the signatures to make sure both names were still there.
In both cases the couples are old enough that the death of an SO might be possible (hence my “especially if you’re older than 60” note) … how is that such a leap/conclusion to jump to?
Of course people have address labels with only one name on it for personal correspondence. But when a card is coming from both of you and it’s for someone who might not have heard about a death, it’s not nice to scare them like that.
