February 7th is National Send a Card to a Friend Day, which is a perfect excuse to start making good on one of my 2017 goals of investing more effort into personal relationships. So, I’m not just sending a card to a friend, I’m sending out 11 cards to both friends and family. This is also excellent timing if I want to send Valentine’s Cards, which I do since I never sent any holiday cards this past December. It’s like a trifecta of good ideas in just one step.
While running errands last week I picked up a couple packages of Valentine’s Day cards that were pretty and elegant, and of course I couldn’t resist the red foil heart stickers hanging right next to them. For some of the cards I just put a personal note inside, this was for cards to people with whom I speak regularly. For others, I’ve hand-written a separate letter to put inside for those I haven’t written or spoken to in some time. I remember my grandmother being a prolific letter writer when I was a little girl and I remember thinking how special it was to get a hand-written letter from someone far, far away. Now, we have the internet and smartphones so it’s even easier to communicate with people but I find emails, texts and even social media to be lacking in the intimacy that comes from a person sitting down and taking the time to write a message with their own hands. It may not be something that you hang on the wall but they really are works of art created just for the recipient. So while my penmanship may leave a little (or a lot) to be desired, it brought up fun childhood memories for me and I hope will create some happy moments for the recipients
Do you have any relationships, friends you’ve fallen out of contact with, or distant relatives, that could benefit from a card or a letter? Why not give it a try? Even a quick little note could brighten someone’s day, including your own.
Have fun,
Jane