The Joliday Card: Sending Holiday Cards in January (A True Story)

The best way to stay connected to distant family and old friends? Send your holiday cards in January.

Let me explain.

This was the year I successfully reinvited how I celebrate the holidays. I lost both of my parents within a year and a half of each other, one mid-pandemic and one towards the end. As the cliché goes, when parents die, the invisible forces they once managed—the ones that shield a family from falling apart—often dissolve along with their mortal lives. The irony in my case was that I had actually been the "glue" for years, long before my parents died. My mother had passed the baton of holiday hosting onto her children rather unceremoniously, and I was the one who stepped into her shoes. My husband and I, celebrating our 25th anniversary this year, have hosted twenty-one of the Thanksgivings we’ve shared (but who’s counting) and even more Christmases. For most of my adult life, I have rarely been a guest at someone else’s holiday table.

However, the "baton" I carried finally met its finish line. My move away from the South, where most of my siblings still live, brought an abrupt end to these decades of tradition. The holiday gatherings in their new form were no longer what I looked forward to, and with my parents gone, I felt a devastating shift in my holiday joy. The internal loss of my parents and the external reality of my relocation converged into a singular, quiet finality: it was suddenly all over. When that ship sank, my heart sank with it, leaving me to wonder what remains when the table is set only for ghosts and memories—and the path forward feels like a heartbreaking one to forge.

In this state of profound grief and confusion, I have not sent out holiday cards. The work of ordering, addressing, and mailing holiday cards falls to me, and I am (mostly) accepting of this. My husband enjoys receiving others’ cards, but is not driven enough in this particular task to create one on our family’s behalf. So, because it is important to me to send them out, I have taken on the task. But when my heart felt sad, lost, and resentful, I simply did not feel the spark to endure the project of holiday cards. In the past few years, I have barely survived the new and foreign landscape of my family’s holiday season. Summoning up the energy for holiday cards was not going to happen.

Finally, after four years of reinventing my mindset and trying new things for the holidays, I ordered holiday cards in early December. They will be done right on time! I thought optimistically. They arrived, then sat in their box, unopened, for many weeks. I would eye them and quickly avert my attention elsewhere—those damn holiday cards were mocking me! So you thought you could pull this off in addition to completely reinventing one of your most treasured seasons of the year? Ha!  

The holiday came and went, a triumph of overcoming pain and grief. This year, I found joy and connection by focusing on the most salient traditions and adding some new ways to celebrate. I felt more like myself during this festive time than I had in years, and yet the holiday cards sat in the box, still unopened.

Finally, I started addressing the cards. It was not pure joy, but I did feel the warmth of connection, knowing I was reaching out to important people in my life. Then the box sat again, now opened, now mocking me in its incompletion. The half-finished box of cards moved from one surface in my den and kitchen to another through New Year’s Eve, and then through the kids’ first day back to school in January. The waste of it was about to kill me. Not to mention the nagging feeling of imbalance left from receiving cards sent from so many dear friends and them receiving nothing in return—yet another year. The unsent cards were gnawing at my principles and ideals.

By this point, it was inching awfully close to late January. I decided to just finish them. Very, very late. Who cares! I thought with a flourish, giving myself the best therapy talk ever. People will love getting them, even if they are late and say “MERRY CHRISTMAS!” in cheerful lettering across the front.

I spent the next two evenings after work addressing envelopes, soliciting someone, anyone in my family, to stamp and lick them. I texted distant friends for their updated addresses, mumbling under my breath about needing a new system—a spreadsheet, maybe. Are there fairies who create spreadsheets of address lists? Next year, I promised myself with a wink.

With a triumphant strut, I walked the tall stack of hand-addressed envelopes to the mailbox and put up the red flag for the mail carrier. Holiday cards delivered by January 31st? Why not?! Better late than never!

Then it happened, the texts and emails started coming in. I have heard from more long-time friends than in any other year. Lovely little update emails, letting me know more about what is happening in their family lives, and sweet messages saying how much they liked getting the card. Wrapped around this story, which is not actually about late holiday cards, is the message of connection that is almost always worth the effort. I have delighted in the notes from friends I rarely talk with anymore—but with whom I share important and meaningful history. We are separated by miles of land, mountains, and streams, but not such long distances in our hearts.

A local friend told me over coffee last weekend how much she loved getting our card. She laughed with warmth, sharing how she appreciated my choice to show up imperfectly. She said she gave an audible Hell yeah! standing at her mailbox as she opened the card. She said my unapologetic lateness created a moment of feeling seen and understood, like I was saying, “I know the pressure you feel each holiday season to get it all done. It’s okay if it doesn’t all go as planned.”

In the post-holiday calm, I am sure a hand-addressed note in the mail gets a little more focus and attention. Maybe this will be my new plan… a Happy New Year card sent out after the holiday season is over, when I have time to send them and others have time to really enjoy receiving them.

So, be on the lookout. The Carlsons might just be the caboose of your holiday season from here on out. And if offering myself grace is truly the mantra of the year? Don’t be surprised if I skip the “Happy Holidays” entirely and, in February, wish you a very Happy Valentine’s Day instead.

Enjoy the slow- Heather