# Christmas Cards! How many have you received? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 15, 2003, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-cards-how-many-have-you-received/219102 "2003-12-15T12:34:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![tsarina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f4b2a3/32.png) [@tsarina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tsarina)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2003, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-cards-how-many-have-you-received/219102/21 "2003-12-15T20:22:30Z")
I’ve sent out about 8 so far, and am currently at work writing my Christmas letter to send out with the other 15 or so. So far I’ve received ONE STINKIN’ CARD, from my friend’s mom. I feel so unloved. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2003, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-cards-how-many-have-you-received/219102/22 "2003-12-15T20:25:31Z")
Aaargh! That should read, \ ---
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/21906_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2003, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-cards-how-many-have-you-received/219102/23 "2003-12-15T23:05:45Z")
Got one more today from one of hubby’s aunts. Sent a few more out today, too. ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2003, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-cards-how-many-have-you-received/219102/24 "2003-12-16T13:42:03Z")
OK, **DantheMan’s** card is in the mail. Anyone else? ---
**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2003, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-cards-how-many-have-you-received/219102/25 "2003-12-16T17:51:41Z")
**gobear** , yours went into the mail today as well. DC/VA mail being what it is, perhaps you’ll get it by Christmas Day. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2003, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-cards-how-many-have-you-received/219102/26 "2003-12-16T18:51:07Z")
Just as long as it doesn’t go through Brentwood _cough, wheeze_ ---
**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2003, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-cards-how-many-have-you-received/219102/27 "2003-12-16T18:58:08Z")
Happily for all, I believe that one still shut down. ---
**Author:** ![SJSB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@SJSB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SJSB)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2003, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-cards-how-many-have-you-received/219102/28 "2003-12-16T22:25:40Z")
I have now received 9 cards, and I (finally) wrote out the cards for my work colleagues yesterday. ---
**Author:** ![Nvme77](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c89c15/32.png) [@Nvme77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nvme77)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2003, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-cards-how-many-have-you-received/219102/29 "2003-12-17T07:24:42Z")
0/0 for the count. I bought my cards last year and should have filled them out while on the long drive this weekend. ---
**Author:** ![Flamsterette\_X](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/41988e/32.png) [@Flamsterette\_X](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flamsterette_X)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2003, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-cards-how-many-have-you-received/219102/30 "2003-12-17T08:25:47Z")
I gave out / mailed about 25 or so, and so far have received four or five. Might be more waiting for me tomorrow or the next day when I check to see whether my apartment’s exploded yet. 😉 F\_X ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2003, 9:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-cards-how-many-have-you-received/219102/31 "2003-12-17T09:20:06Z")
A simple question, eh? Funny you should ask. We met when she was six and I was five and I have remembered that day for fifty-five years since. My old friend and I used to exchange gifts. She could always find something special. One year we even gave each other the same pair of gloves, only in different colors. It was that kind of friendship. My favorite presents came the years that she made candies or pastries. She’s was known for her baking even in our teens. She made a variety of candies that would bring tears to the cheeks of rejoicing angels. Sweet melting chocolate mints, pecan pralines that would put to shame the fine candy stores in Savannah, Charleston and New Orleans – peanut butter fudge and peanut brittle and divinity truly worthy of the name. I remember every blessed bite. She was _gifted._ Then out of the blue about thirty years ago she decided that it was all too much trouble since she has a lot of friends. And gift exchanges were getting too expensive and fattening. So we stopped exchanging presents. It was not a big issue. We exchanged Christmas cards until I married into a family with a stepson who did not approve of sacrificing trees to make cards with pictures of trees on them. It made sense to me. So I quit sending any. But she always sent the prettiest or funniest card. It was always outstanding in some way. The one that went on top of the meager and eventually shrinking pile. Last year the card didn’t arrive. I couldn’t have been more surprised! One becomes accustomed to these gestures. The stubborn thing had taken me off her dad-blame Christmas card list! She just lives a couple of blocks away and we hadn’t had a fight or anything. She just got tired of sending me one and never getting one from me. Then, when I commented last year that all I had gotten were cards from Pokie’s Realtors, a couple of charities and my former mother-in-law, she actually thought that I was _hinting_…for a gol-durned Christmas card!!! _And she sniffed at me._ No cards were exchanged with her this Christmas either. But we had dinner out together with our Significant Others and then deposited ourselves in her den for an evening of disjointed memories and roundabout lies. I nodded off. She noticed. I glared. She served red velvet cake ice cream with hot fudge sauce. Damn this gastric bypass! Damn her perky Christmas plates and red glasses and just so linens! We finish and shiver our way back to the den. And that’s when I saw them. Over the fireplace. In stacks and streams and festive bunches --Christmas cards. Hundred of them! Dazzling, shiney, glossy, glittery, gold and green and silver and sequined and red _Christmas cards_! Snarlying, taunting, mean-spirited **C-C-Christmas cards**!!! She was flaunting them. “We’ll be going now! Merry Christmas!” I bellowed as I headed for the door, streaking past my dazed husband. My fiendish friend and I hugged and air kissed as my husband reached for his coat. But she had one more wicked thing on her agenda. Oh, she is truly unsurpassed in her ability to make a sharply hewn point. As my husband was about to give her a goodbye hug, she put a huge container of her angel-singing homemade candies into his hands and said, “Here’s **your** Christmas present.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-cards-how-many-have-you-received/219102.md?page=1)