Card.

Finally got my Christmas cards into a mailbox yesterday. Your should be along soon.

WAIT! The STAAAAAMPS!!!!!

Oh, well. They were nice cards, too.

As I complained last year, most of the cards I get from friends and family are pre-printed photos with pre-written messages through outfits like Shutterfly. I wasn't kidding when I wrote that I get more heartfelt and personal messages from my mortgage company. This year I got a card from the insurance company that gave me more happiness than the average card from friends. Really, many people seem to treat Christmas cards as just a pain in the ass to get through as fast as possible.

So why bother? To support the post office?

Okay, Fred, you're such the arbiter of class and propriety. What do YOU do with your Christmas cards besides forget the stamps? you ask.

Well, I start with fresh organic recycled pulp, scented lightly with ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, and a soupçon of cardamom, which I hand-roll into paper and trim into shape for cards. (A lighter batch is used for envelopes.) Upon each card my team of artists paints a Christmas theme, generally religious based on the Renaissance masters, and a message inside written by an old lady of my employ who is an expert in shodō, or Japanese calligraphy. After enclosing a personal 800-word essay with each card, I seal using beeswax with larch resin, stamped with my signet ring, and delivered by my flock of trained messenger pigeons.

No, we just get nice cards from Hallmark or American Greetings, sign them with our own hands, add a personal note or well-wishes, and send them off.

Time-consuming? I suppose. But it means more than junk mail.