send birthday cards

I sent a card to my grandma last weekend (which was in the middle of a lot of wedding festivities, and I am very proud of myself for remembering). Then this afternoon I just put a card in the mail for one of my good friend’s 30th birthday. I am having dinner with her tonight, but it will be more of a surprise to get a card in the mail tomorrow!

Unfortunately the only birthday card I had on the list to send in December was my grandmother who passed away earlier this year. So in a bittersweet way, I get to cross this off my list early. It has been a fair amount of work. It helps that I marked all the dates on my calendar and bought all the cards ahead of time. But I think that it had brought some joy into people’s lives. And more joy in this world is always a good thing. I hope you keep this up next year!

I sent a card to my favorite 4 year old early in the month, although it did require me to drive 5 miles down to the post office before midnight one evening. My fault for procrastinating. Today I sent the last October card off to my best friends boyfriend. He will probably be pretty surprised to get it. I only have two more to send in November, and then I am done with this goal for the year.

I sent a Birthday card to a 7 year old I know. Her mother said she was excited to get it. And I sent a Grandparent’s day card to my grandma. She was super-excited about it. Unfortunately I lost my other grandma the week before and picking out a card was very difficult. I started crying in the middle of Walgreens. This just helped to reaffirm my goal: send cards to people while you can still let them know that you love them!

I sent my dad a card for his June 18th birthday. He was happy, but was expecting it because he knew about my goal.
On July 23rd I sent my friend Jen a card. She sent me a message that it absolutely made her day to get a card in the mail. This made me very happy because this was the point of the goal – to be the kind of person who surprises others with kindness!

Two friends with birthdays in May, two cards sent! Right on schedule.

March 16th – My Aunt in Columbus
April 4th – My Uncle in L.A.

I sent my aunt a birthday card yesterday because her birthday is Feb. 4th (Thursday). I put it in one of those blue boxes where you drop it in and close the lid, never to see it again. As I shut the lid I thought to myself: wait, is her birthday March 4th? It is! I had to call her family last night and explain the problem. They said they would try to hijack the card and give it to her in a month. Oops! Better Early than never.

Jan 11th – I sent my friend Amy a card!
Jan 13th – I sent my mom a card… it was even on time!

I am horrible at sending people mail. And who doesn’t like to get a birthday card? My friend Gretchen is really good at remembering people’s birthday and it always makes me feel so happy that she sent something, yet so disappointed in myself. Again, I feel that sending cards is something that grown-ups do. I want to become the kind of person people say “she always remembers my birhtday” about!

I’m gathering birthdays. This part is not as easy as I thought. With friends and family scattered across the country, time zones and schedules are bigger hurtles then I expected. And the question remains, do I take my husband’s family into my own hands. We’ve been married almost 5 years, together almost 10 and up until now I’ve left birthday stuff up to him. Of course I tend to feel bad when he forgets to call his sister on her birthday.