Christmas Cards and Content

Contributed by Eric D. Lussier

It struck me last night while addressing the family’s fifty Christmas cards that the art of sending Holiday cards is much like creating content. And it all boils down to this:

You either make time, or you don’t.

And as a family, we’ve been good about it. Since introducing the youngest six years ago, we’ve only missed one season. When it comes down to it, it generally only takes an hour to find a few pictures, upload them to a photo website and then order them. Addressing, sealing and stamping takes another hour or so. The end result is usually delivered in two hours and off they go into the world, to live on the refrigerator or wall for a few weeks and then shuffled away into the great trashcan in the sky, or to live in a drawer with all of the other years accumulated like ours do.

So, why is it so difficult to find these two hours and get this deed done? I suppose for the same reason that it’s hard to sit down and create a piece of content: it’s about finding the time. Time is our most precious commodity, yet we cannot purchase more. No matter how many Black Friday or Cyber Monday sales we look though.  

There is always something else to get done. At home, you have the chores that never stop, especially with children. Cooking. Dishes. Laundry. Daily routines. Did I mention dishes? With a six-year-old and an eight-year-old, there are always dishes. If I’m not loading the dishwasher, I’m emptying the dishwasher. If I’m not hand-washing, I’m loading or emptying the dishwasher. It. Doesn’t. Ever. Stop.

For work, or the side hustle, it’s much the same. There’s always the need for billable time. For sending invoices or collecting money. Finalizing details. Meetings. Endless meetings. Phone calls. Emails.

It then circles back around to priorities in life. Is the world going to end if they don’t see pictures of the children? Certainly not. But it’s the thought, or message, that counts. That you took time out of your day to create the card (or content), addressed, stamped and licked the envelope (or posted the blog), and passed them off to the postal service (or posted to Facebook) to hopefully spread joy onto the recipient.

Mere days into December, we’re just three weeks from Christmas Eve. I scratch my head wondering where 2019 went. 2020 starts just four weeks from tomorrow. I usually can’t find an extra two hours in my week, but as I licked the fiftieth envelope at 7:30 last night, I’m glad those 120 minutes were discovered.