I don’t know about you, but every single year I start thinking about Christmas in about August. New rubber stamps and ink pads, blank cards and metallic pens are ordered. Plans are put in place to make all my own cards. I even start buying a few books of stamps each payday to lessen the pain in December.
And most years, I get to the start of December and find myself buying pre-printed cards. There’s some hastily scribbling before I throw them in the post on the very last posting day before Christmas.
Enter the kittens
But this year… this year I have new kittens. And as they turned up unexpectedly a month before I intended to bring kittens home, at the end of November… I am even less organised than usual. They’re not allowed in my studio, and they’re so gorgeously distracting that I’m also not in my studio much as a result.
I flapped briefly about this for a while. Would I be a terrible friend/person/family member if I didn’t send actual physical cards to my loved one? I decided to blame my lack of organisational skills on the kittens. Also that in the position of my loved ones, I’d rather receive something digital than nothing at all…
So I put this together and emailed it out, some in a large group and some with individual notes attached.
You can see the other side in the PDF – Christmas card from Carla 2013.
Admittedly it’s not quite the same as receiving something in the post (which we all know is one of my most favourite things). However, it certainly assuaged some guilt for being out of touch, Macmillan benefited financially from my disorganisation, and apparently, if you put kittens on emails, it makes people happy at work – who knew?!
A January tradition
I’m seriously considering starting a tradition of January cards instead. January is always a dreary month. No one ever gets post as we’re all busy paying off Christmas and keeping to resolutions. So an unexpected card in the post should brighten people’s months a little, don’t you think?
And my message to you this Christmas? It’s just another day if an extremely festive one. Don’t fret if you haven’t got it all sorted. Pick between one and three things you can actually do between now and the big day, and then chill out and relax with an extremely large mug of tea. And create your own traditions at different times of the year. You never know what might catch on!
Have a wonderful festive few days, and we’ll catch up with you afterwards!
xoxo, Carla
P.S. Happiness really is a cat on your lap…
P.P.S. Last posting date for the UK has now passed – we’ll still happily post parcels but they won’t reach you till after Christmas now!