My dear friend from England, Monika, posted a comment on my entry from last Friday. She said that she got my Christmas card and it was the first one they received this year.
What she doesn't know is . . . the REST of the story!
I was determined to get all the cards for my friends in England and family and friends in Canada mailed out early. One of my uncles, Uncle Paul Hunt, lives in a town that's so small it has one business - that's the full extent of the town. Mail from us usually takes about two to three weeks to get to him, so I like to make sure I send out his card early enough that he actually gets it before Christmas. Several other family members live in similar remote areas, so I plan to get all the Canadian cards out around Thanksgiving. This year I had several to send to England, as well, and we discovered when living there that mail from the U.S. is not highly regarded and can take a VERY long time to arrive.
I wrote my Christmas letter, printed it on pretty Christmas snowflake paper and sat up late one night addressing labels. The next morning I wrote the cards, inserted one of my holiday letters and carefully sealed the envelopes. I put our return address labels and then checked the USPS website for postal rates to the UK and Canada. It took quite some time to piece together enough stamps to make the right postage, but I was diligent.
Our outgoing mail has to be clipped to the outside of our mailbox, so we can only send out 5 or 6 cards at a time. I took all the foreign ones, which turned out to be many more than 5 or 6 considering so much of my family lives in Canada, wrapped a rubberband around them and clipped them to the outside of my box. The rest of the cards that I had managed to get written I stuck in a stationery box and left on the dining room table.
The next day, I took 5 more cards out of the stationery box and clipped them to our mailbox. And thus it went for several days. I finally had only one batch of cards left to mail out when I discovered - woe is me - I had forgotten to put postage on all my U.S. cards!
I felt like an idiot. I had tried so hard to get the postage correct on the foreign cards, I had completely neglected the American ones. I chased the mailman down that afternoon and he told me that he hadn't noticed but that the machine at the main post office would spit them out and they'd be returned to me.
"I brought you back 3 today," he smiled as he gleefully commented.
"Thanks a lot!" I responded. I went inside and took every effort to cover up the red "Returned for Postage" stamp across the top of the envelope with postage stamps so my friends wouldn't know just how crazy I am this time of year. It's been several days and I hadn't gotten any more in the mail until today.
My brother's card, my in-law's card, and friends of ours from Don's hometown are the proud recipients of "Returned for Postage" cards. Unfortunately, the USPS stamped these ones a little wildly so I don't think I'll be able to cover up my sin with postage stamps.
I'm glad Monika got my card this early. I'm even happier it had postage on it.
Merry Christmas, my dear friend. I miss you terribly and that wonderful guy who shares your house (No, Monika, I don't mean Zeus!). I'm glad you had a good time at your reunion but next time, wear house slippers.
Wish you were here with us to celebrate Christmas instead of just exchanging cards and e-mails. Maybe next year?!?
All my love to you and have a wonderful holiday. And kisses from all the kids.
Patti
No comments:
Post a Comment