Christmas Cards

For more than sixty years my mother-in-law sent out her Christmas greetings on postcards. She wrote a little note that reflected what was going on in her family and in the world. Her brother the printer made them for her at no cost. Postcards were only a penny each when they began sending these notes in 1941. Reading through them now I see her life unfold. She writes of her boys and how they grew. She writes of the world and how it was. She talks about the joy of grandchildren and the travels she and Bill enjoyed in retirement. At the end she talked about the loneliness of widowhood and her hope for the future. We always looked forward to her Christmas card, eager to see what she had to say each year.

I looked through these cards last week and was stuck by how little the world has changed. Her card from 1952 could have been written this year. She talks about the big changes coming to Washington, about the economy, about climate change, about her hope that the war would soon end, and how she hopes that all the changes will be good for America.

As we go through today's big political and economic changes, I find comfort in knowing that it was all going on in 1952 and we are all still here.