Happ eChristmas

I worry that having not sent Christmas cards two years in a row and adding the complication of international postage this year, that we're quickly getting dropped from Christmas card lists.  I hope not.  I love cards. Especially love those with photographs.  At our house, those get saved and packed away to look through when we get out the ornaments.  

I just love mail.  Almost as much as pretty paper and ribbons.  This is why I hope never to receive another evite and why I am going to apply for diplomatic immunity at the Apple store.  The other day I took notes while talking to an Apple employee in the Regent Street store.  With a pen and paper.  (The alternative was I could have walked to one of their computer filled counters (I won't say "bar" - that's just goofy) to book a service appointment.)  I was tempted to explain to him what these charming instruments I was using were.  Next time I'm going to take an inkwell and quill. I used go there and basically announce myself as a little old lady (think Jitterbug phone owner) until I noticed plenty of little old ladies in studious conferences with teams of red shirted people, clearly knowing perfectly well what they were doing there.  Truth be told, I usually know what I am doing in the Apple store.  I've just never quite understood what ALL of those employees and most of the customer-types are doing, busy with various tiny motherboards housed in plastic.  But that's just me.  

Maybe you'll think I'm going green in sending electronic cards or posting a family photo on our blog.  That's a lovely thought and I'm all for the environment, but it is also that I've spent a fair amount of spare change in hurried cab rides up and down George Street to school. But I know you'd agree that it was the right thing to do on many an occasion (and on others you'd have planned better but you won't point that out which is why we're friends!  Hooray, us!).  Some days I try my hardest not to wake Baby Sister from an afternoon nap and then the bus doesn't come in time and I don't want to be on the wrong side of school folk and be late to pick up the school-going smalls.  Worse, there are evenings when it is cold and dark and I've already had to busy 3 smalls for an hour or more while a sibling had an after school club or class.  That's when the kids' belongings seem to have quadrupled just as their ability to carry more than their snack has drastically diminished.  That is usually also the evening Baby Sister insists on being carried and we turn the stroller into a cart, heaping it full of what I'm betting it would take several sherpas to carry to Base Camp. Then it begins to rain.  

So, this is your card this year.  

While I'd like to think it is not true that I spent what I could have on cards on cabs, mostly up and down one street (and will beg comedic artistic license if the Mister is reading this), I think it might be so. This week I watched Baby Sister and Big Sister playing "Moms." And I am not making this up.  They got skirts and shoes on, hoisted purses on their tiny shoulders, put out arms and hips to hail cabs (I tried to tell myself they could have been motioning for a bus...) and then announced they were "going to John Lewis."  Oh.  John Lewis.  In the spirit of Christmas confessions, I'm very sure I also spent a significant portion of monies that could have gone to a lovely card (which I imagine to be photo, cardstock, ribbon, colorful envelopes and international postage) there this year, too.  At least on floors 1-5 and in a few of the cafes but now that the kids are in school, not at all in the restaurant.  Since September.

So please keep documenting your exciting life, photographing your beautiful family, sending us your newsletters, and by all means, keep us on your Christmas card list.  In exchange, I'll gladly direct you to dozens of places around London where you're sure to catch a cab or give you a guided tour of John Lewis.  Baby Sister will help.