Vintage Christmas card (Photo by Cheryl Tevis)
Dear readers,
Merry Yuletide! I’m posting a few singular greetings from holidays past: postcards from a bygone era, with images of a simpler time portraying a slower pace of life. My dear grandma tucked these away in a drawer, unsent; I’ve collected them in a small album I treasure.
Postcards were the text messages of their time, and their heyday was between 1900 and 1915. The cards, with a small space for a personal note and a stamp, were inexpensive, and didn’t require an envelope. They were slow to arrive, but time-saving to the sender. Writing letters in the proper format of the day was time-consuming in an era when people had to complete the tasks of daily life without modern conveniences.
Yet today we often feel our lives are so busy and rushed. Sometimes I wonder how did I ever get everything done ahead of the holidays?
My friend Mary is a journaler, and during a recent visit, she brought a copy of her entry following a 1993 visit to our farm. Mary wrote that my older daughter was decorating the windows in preparation for a party in two weeks. “We can never get ready because Mom has to get the baby to sleep,” my daughter told her. It made me laugh aloud, and released a rush of December memories: