A little while back my friend Rick handed me an old holiday card he had received from Barb and me years ago. “We were decluttering the house while we renovated, ” he said. “We came across years worth of your cards, and thought we should save at least one for you.”

I added the card to an orange folder I keep, a folder containing a somewhat incomplete roster of all the cards we have sent through the years. This morning, I added the 2023 edition and spent much of this dreary day looking back on all the old cards, as many past memories came my way. It was my personal TBTOAS (Throw Back Thursday on a Saturday.)

The collection begins with the very first picture holiday card we ever sent. In the photo, Barb, Michael, Laury, and I are enjoying an English Tea at a small shop on Vancouver Island. The kids, aged 7 and 5, daintily raise their cups, little fingers extended, bubbling over with sophistication. It is almost impossible to comprehend that in the photo on this year’s card, a card featuring the entire family at Disneyworld, both our kids are parents, and our grandkids are now 40% of the clan.

Where has the time gone? As I look through the cards, I see it in the many photos we have selected to send to our friends every December. Pictures from birthdays, from weddings, from marvelous vacations, and from everyday life. There are reminders of beloved pets that are no longer with us and a photo that stands as a memorial to our former home in Long Grove, the home in which the kids grew up and from which Barb was so reluctant to leave.

Along with the photo cards are many of the inserts we composed to send along to let everyone know how we were all doing. Those inserts were clearly forerunners to my blogs, with the same tenderness mixed with the same tiny bit of snark. Among my favorites: A letter to a “Dear Kitty” advice columnist in which our new kitten described the past year and asked why we had so much trouble naming her; a newspaper Special Edition announcing the various roles our family would play in the (first) Obama administration; a TV Guide page listing the astonishing TV shows the Raff’s were starring in that season. All fun things to write, and along with the photos wonderful to look back on.

I hope this holiday season is being kind to you all. For all of us, our personal lives and the world around us bring challenges, but to paraphrase the late Danny Thomas, “Give thanks for the good things in your life, and give support to those who need it most”

Happy Holidays from our family to yours.

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