Holiday Missives

In our ever-increasingly high-tech world, I tend to be on the low-tech end of many things. I don’t Instagram or Snapchat or Tweet. When I called a friend the other day to get directions en route, his response was an incredulous, “Don’t you have Google Maps?” I still write appointments into a paper daytimer, which sits on my kitchen counter and is in no way synced to my phone and laptop.

This low-tech-ness extends to my method of sending Christmas cards. You won’t find me mail merging from a fancy Excel spreadsheet or printing tidy labels from an organized list. Nope. I still use my trusty spiral-bound address book. Judging by some of the names scribbled within, I’ve had the book a good 20 years. Probably longer.

Sorting out the Christmas card list is always a trip down Memory Lane anyway, a journey enhanced by the physical act of turning the pages of my slightly tattered address book. With an electronic list, updates are made with a few keystrokes as friends move or fall out of touch. My little book, which sits idly by the phone for the rest of the year, reveals names of Christmases past – and many other adventures.

I can see clearly which friends have moved several times, because their old locales are scratched off and rewritten wherever there was room. Sticky notes with other address changes poke out in a multi-colored array from the worn pages. Married friends with changed last names often have two entries – with their original names and their newer ones – and I have to take care not to send multiple cards to these twice-entered pals.

I pause, at least inwardly, often as I address the envelopes, wondering what old friends in Colorado or Massachusetts or across the Atlantic have been up to in the months since we last exchanged Christmas cards, trying to figure out how old children I once babysat are now. (I am always surprised when their family cards arrive and reveal these children I hold in my mind as toddlers or grade schoolers are now driving or attending college.)

Many times I can picture the places where I am sending the cards – the view of Paradise Divide from Crested Butte, the happily cluttered house of my one-time soccer coach in Old Harlow, the craggy shoreline and green-gray sea of the Renvyle Peninsula. As my pen puts numbers and street names onto paper, I recall times spent in these places.

If I were to print labels from an electronic address list, I’d lose that conjuring up of the past, which is the best part of sending cards. My method takes longer and can certainly be a bit disorderly, but I like it anyway.

Some of the names in my address book I’ve not written onto an envelope in many years. There are college buddies with whom I exchanged summer letters long ago, before the dawn of email, when notes were sent from mailbox to mailbox year-round, not only at Christmastime. Their names are still in the book, but their addresses have likely changed many times since we last corresponded.

For years I sent a card to the nervous Irish couple I lodged with during the summer I studied at university in Galway. I no longer send the annual missive to their address on Carbry Road, nor have I received one from them in several Christmases. But that entry in my address book evokes memories of my first journey to Ireland, which I spent seeking some insight into my Irish heritage, struggling to learn an ancient language, and embracing legends and fairytales I’d never heard as a child.

There are other names from that summer, too, mostly people I’ve fallen out of touch with in the 20 years since, but a few who still receive a Christmas card from me each year. There are high school friends within those pages, too, and old soccer teammates, former co-workers and longtime family friends. A few of the names in my book belong to people who have died; as I turn the pages, I remember them, too, and our shared stories. It seems right to have their names still written there.

For many of the people on my Christmas card list, this annual exchange by so-called snail mail is our only correspondence. Others I see often or occasionally. Many pop up on my Facebook feed, so I feel as if I have some sense of the goings-on in their lives, even if we haven’t spoken in years.

Some of their cards come with newsy letters of recent events, both happy and challenging. Others are store-bought cards, hastily signed. Many include photos of growing children, beloved pets, and adventures from the past year. Before I open each envelope, I try to discern the sender from the handwriting or the postmark. I am happy to receive each card, each glimpse into the world of the sender, whether casual acquaintance, favorite cousin, or dear old friend.

Sometimes I receive a card from someone who has moved since their last holiday missive. I tear the return address from the envelope and tuck it into my address book where it joins other similar scraps, old notes and letters I’ve saved, and many treasured memories. All stowed away until next year’s Christmas mailing.

Original content by Meghan McCarthy McPhaul, posted to her Blog: Writings From a Full Life. This essay also appears as Meghan's Close to Home column in the December 24, 2015 edition of the Littleton Record.

What's cooking on Facebook?

I was a social media skeptic for a long time. I figured I was in touch with everyone I need to be in touch with, and I didn’t have time for more Internet distraction.

Alas, I eventually caved and created a Facebook account. Along with finding plenty of old friends there, and several people I hadn’t even realized I missed, I’ve also made new connections that are sometimes purely social and sometimes work-related. Yes, I actually conduct work through Facebook, from posting links to copy I’ve written for various businesses to tracking down people I’d like to interview for stories I’m writing.

 

As anyone who spends even a smidgen of time navigating social media knows, Facebook and Pinterest and the rest can be one great big time suck. It’s so easy to be distracted by videos of cute puppies, or decorating ideas, or the latest political baloney those certain friends can’t help but share – without actually fact-checking the source first.

But social media has its benefits, too. For me, as a writer, the great big world of social media allows me to share my work with a larger – or at least different – audience than it otherwise might attract. It’s also a place to build my network of sources, which is especially helpful when my subject matter ranges from luna moths and hiking to Christmas trees, chamber music, and staying sane while raising kids.

A few weeks back I used Facebook to track down someone I wanted to interview for a story I’m writing for a ski magazine. We’d never met, but I had his name and a few basic bits of information, and he was easy to find on Facebook. Sent a message, got a response, and set up the interview with a few key strokes. Beautiful.

Turns out my interview subject and I had a few shared connections, or connections-once-removed. He used to ski race with a guy I used to coach with, and he’s also friends with the son of my former boss. Small (virtual) world. I used Facebook to set up two other interviews with strangers for that story, too. So, along with the given distractions of the social media world, I also got some work done that day, via Facebook.

Earlier this week, while sitting home with a sick child and grappling with the new realization that I’d be without a stove and oven for an entire week, I put a post on Facebook about my dilemma. Within minutes I had meal ideas ranging from pancakes or quesadillas on the electric griddle to crock pot chicken and pizza on the grill. One friend offered the loan of a toaster oven, another said I was welcome to use her kitchen, and my sister-in-law invited us for dinner.

The most entertaining suggestion came from a former local town official, with whom I used to speak just about every day when I worked as a newspaper reporter. I haven’t seen or spoken with him in years, other than on Facebook. He shared a link to an NPR piece titled “Coffee Maker Cooking: Brew Up Your Next Dinner.” (Check out the article here.) I don’t think I could bring myself to place a piece of salmon with ginger and garlic into my coffee pot, while steaming broccoli and cauliflower in the basket. But it was an interesting read.

So, beyond pure distracted amusement and work-related contacts, social media this week provided me with useful information, along with the whimsical meal musings of friends. Where else can you get dinner ideas from people from your past and present, down the road and across the country, new friends and childhood buddies, work colleagues and fellow preschool moms, even the local police chief? That is the wild and wacky web social media weaves.

One of the responders to my post, a woman I went to high school with half a lifetime ago, suggested I check out Pinterest for more ideas. I’m still holding out on that one. I don’t Tweet either (at least not yet), so you won’t find any hashtags in my posts. But if you’re reading this (or any of my other stuff) online and want to pass it along, by all means, click the share button!

Original content by Meghan McCarthy McPhaul, posted to her blog: Writings From A Full Life. This essay also appears as Meghan's Close to Home column in the March 28, 2014 edition of the Littleton Record.