In an age like ours, which is not given to letter-writing, we forget what an important part it used to play in people's lives. 

~Anatole Broyard

I am part of a cusp generation, the last of those who may have had pen and paper pen pals. I have not forgotten the feel of feather-light airmail vellum envelopes with their red and blue edges.  The penmanship of friends and family I have corresponded with is still fresh in my mind.  For many reasons, electronic correspondence makes more sense today.  Perhaps only one reason – speed. Perhaps that too, is its great downfall.  We live in an age with no pause between reception of message and reply.  I'm not sure we are better for it. Email and text have really replaced phone calls more than letters. Letters just sort of faded away.  

Christmas is the one time of year when the mailbox once again brings real, tangible messages from far away. Today more than ever I treasure handwritten addresses and signatures.  It is a truly restorative treat to sit quietly and pour over the new pictures of my children's friends even if I have seen some of them on a screen. 

I sat with a cup of tea today and read a multipage letter from an old friend.  She has email.  So do I. It is different somehow to sit and read her stories of the year past and how she felt about it all. After her letter came a card with a short note from my late mother's best friend from school.  We do not know each other well but the moments she took to tell me she was thinking of us mean more than I can say.  

Old fashioned handwritten correspondence was something that fell by the wayside as the tempo of my life inched upwards. My own bookish and artsy younger children are helping me revisit this habit. I hope we can turn this around a bit, for the sake of us writers as much as for those we send our letters to.  

Some ideas for those cards and letters arriving in your mailbox here here and here

Hymn for St. Nicholas

From every land and every age
We sing of those who bravely wage
The saintly fight with Spirit's sword
In mighty battle for the Lord.

Saint Nicholas the Shepherd true
Who brought his flock to faith anew,
Now by his prayers and faith secure
Draws us, for Jesus to endure.

Now we rejoice on this his day
For in his life, in Christ's sure way,
He saved thy children from their plight,
Defeated sin, put fear to flight.

And we, like sailors lost at sea,
Recall our saint, for surely he
Our patron, points us to the Lord
by whom all sinners are restored.

Now in this church we raise our cry
To God the King of Saints on high.
And pray that, with our Patron, we
May one day God in glory see.

It was a beautiful feast day this year.  We found another pair of authentic Dutch wooden shoes at the thrift store for $4 which made my heart sing, I tell you.  Then our college daughter assembled all the shoe stuffers for us. Even though we have been busy, between us we were able to make a nice morning.  

I commented to a young mom friend though that it's important to look at peaceful, artsy feast day celebrations with a balanced perspective.  Do not compare your spring to another's autum.  I don't have babies at home and have not for many years.  My baby just turned EIGHT years old.  Sigh.  

There are other reasons besides more available time and being well-rested that account for my ability to pull off creative feast days these days.  We are in good health right now.  We have spent 30 married years collecting statues and decorations – $4 or less at a time. It took a loooooong time.  For many years we were lucky to afford dollar store candy canes in their little tennies.  And that was wonderful in its own way.  I am not being facetious.  Oh, to have those tiny children back for an hour or two.  

Our priest has always encouraged us to cultivate fulfilling projects of our own.  He advised that the day would come when the children would be grown and we needed to have other satisfying ways to fill our hours.  That day has not completely come yet but we are definitely in transition.  There are no more hours in the rocker or pacing the floor with colicky infants.  There are no more night wakings nor need for constant vigilance with the outlets or the breakables or the household cleaners.  However, the trials bigger kids face are also not as easily fixed up.  I can't carry around a big twelve year old boy on my hip.  I can fill a shoe with the same favorite treats he has enjoyed for many December sixth's and thereby remind him that while the bigger world around him is ever changing and ever presenting him with new challenges, some things are foundational, fixed, unchanging.  You can count on them.  

It occurred to me that this is a way to embrace those big kids. To borrow a contemporary term – this is my love language.  Decorating and celebrating come easily to me.  I am not particularly skilled in areas other people find come easily to them.  I hope they are embracing their skill set and using it to show love in their own ways.  

That, after all, is the real point.  

The purpose of the task is to strengthen the relationship.  If decorating stresses you then it is not strengthening your relationships. It is straining them.  Go to Starbucks and have a peppermint latte instead.  Go to the library and pick up a Christmas book to share. Pack up that fussy baby and drive around looking at lights til she is asleep again.  

Just be you and be that well.