Family history across the seas

Thomas MacEntee at Geneabloggers is encouraging us to celebrate the 2011 Christmas season with a series of posts called the Advent Calendar of Memories. This is today’s entry. Did your family send cards? Did your family display the ones they received? Do you still send Christmas cards? Do you have any cards from your ancestors?

My family sent out cards but then I think “everyone” did when I was a child, though perhaps not as many as some…we didn’t have a large extended family. And the received cards were always hung up on a tinsel string. Perhaps I have some old ones in my memory box -time for an excavation.

For years I faithfully sent cards but my preference these days is to ring my far-distant friends in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Because we don’t have many chances to see each other it’s a great chance to have a good chat, swap information and keep our friendship alive. However what I’m finding, especially among the older generation, is that they still want cards, so I guess there’ll be a small handful going out.

Probably like many of us, I send Christmas email greetings to my network of extended Kunkel family network and family history mates. With friends I’ll sometimes send a Christmas newsletter. I was vastly amused by (and empathised with) this post by Catch the Window which captures the essence of the worst-of circular Christmas newsletters. Still I like to hear what people are up to and I’d (mostly) rather a bit of OTT information than a simple: “dear You Mob, happy Christmas, love Us Mob”. Those cards make me feel so frustrated…I want to say, but what’s happening in your life, have you had a good/bad year etc but then I guess with our closest friends I already know that. One of the reasons that I sometimes sit down and write my Christmas news “Cass Capers” (often at the last minute having overcome my curmudeonly attitude), is that it’s a great way to remind myself of the year’s events and, in balance, count my blessings. I file a copy in my memory box so maybe they will survive for future generations.

On top of which there’s the Down Under problem of Christmas cards: decades of snow, fir trees, sledding, reindeers….none of those around here. In recent years there’s been more of a trend to generalised cards without the northern hemisphere influences. Mind you, I’m not sure all those “snow-white boomers”/kangaroos are much better than reindeers.

What about you? Do you love or hate Christmas newsletters? Do you send out notes with your cards?