I love the cards and letters we get from friends and family this time of year. A few have sent Hanukkah/Christmas/New Year’s greetings by email, which I like because most of those include photos. Attaching photo files to email is so much easier than having dozens of four by fives printed up and stuffing them into envelopes (special photo-sized envelopes at that). So I’m asking myself why don’t we do that?
A few years back we tried emailing our end-of-year letter (with a nice family photo attached). After all, we had email addresses for virtually everyone on our list. Half went through but half bounced — people who change email providers sometimes forget to update family and friends, not that I’m scolding anyone — and we wound up having to hand-address, stuff, stamp, and lick a bunch of envelopes after all.
That was then. We’re going electronic again this year, armed with a more up-to-date contact list. Fifty-some have gone out by email (only one bounce so far), another twenty via Facebook Messenger — leaving only seven paper letters for the Luddites on our list.
The Luddites, bless their old-fashioned souls, will get their letters on brand-new seasonal stationary (I wasn’t with-it enough to download a seasonal background for the email version). I’m giving readers of Paul’s Thing a glimpse of said letter and stationary, along with a good look at the Seiko automatic diver’s watch I’m wearing today: watch nerds call that a Pepsi dial, after the red & blue bezel.
Apart from this photo, I won’t inflict the letter on readers of my blog. I’m an open book and everything in it has been covered in previous posts. If by some fluke you’ve just stumbled upon Paul’s Thing, you aren’t missing much: we’re fine and hope you are too, here’s what we did in 2023 (not much), here’s what we’re planning for 2024 (even less!), Merry Christmas & Happy New Year, yadda yadda.
We may have rain this week, possibly starting today. I can say with almost total certainty we won’t have a white Christmas. But hey, our gift-shopping is done, we have some outdoor decorations up, and we’re planning our Christmas Eve dinner (my Dad’s clam chowder with Red Lobster cheddar biscuits). What to have for dinner on Christmas Day is still up for grabs, but Donna says we have lobster tails in the freezer, so maybe something surf ‘n’ turfish.
In my previous post I shared some concerns over Covid, which is running the rounds again (as if it ever stopped). The problem with having friends who read your blog is that they might think you’re talking about them when you’re not. My worries were in the context of going to a house party with a bunch of people, not trusted friends visiting us at our house. Well, we did go to that party, where it turned out we knew only two of the thirty-odd folks there. That was Sunday. It’s Tuesday morning now and we’re fine, not even a sniffle, so everything’s working out. Vaccinations and boosters, friends, vaccinations and boosters.
Our son Gregory meets a lot of people in his line of work. He recently sent a photo of him palling around with Governor Joe Lombardo of Nevada. Well, la dee dah, I have one of me yukking it up with Mayor Carolyn Goodman of Las Vegas. Of course I only met her honor because Gregory knows her, but never mind.
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I’d better not try to top my son. He probably has one of him with Taylor Swift.
More soon!