Christmas card sadness

I'm doing my Christmas cards this afternoon. All the addresses are typed out in a file and every year there are one or two more with RIP written next to them. It is sad.

Aye, my own card list is down quite a few. I have a few friends and relatives with varying illnesses and one friend losing her sight. I will continue to send Christmas cards to the friends and family I still have. It's an old tradition and a lovely one. I think it matters, especially to those on their own. Electronic means just isn't the same. Im like Bradford Lass, though sad about those no longer with us, Im grateful these lovely folks from times past were a part of my life. Gone maybe, but never forgotten.

Every year we receive a card intended for some neighbors a few doors down. Every year we put it through their letter box. You'd think by now they'd have let the people know they had their address down wrong. Maybe next year I shall simply cross out the number and put "not known at this address" and put it back in the post - see if that gets through to them

I'm breaking my heart reading this. Last night I saw one of my sisters in the chapel of rest at my local hospital. Absolutely devastated as this was too early for her to go but she was tragically taken after a fall. I can't get my head around it.

I got her the most beautiful card which I know she would have loved. I normally post it but saw another sister on 7th and passed family cards to her as she was likely to see most first. As it happens she didn't see this sister so posted the cards for her on the day she died. It's really, really silly but I can't help thinking she never got my card.

We buried Mam this year too and have many close to us that have had devastating years too.

Everything is so so raw after my darling John's sudden death on the 9th but I have gone ahead and sent the cards from the two of us as I had already written them out prior to his passing its going to be hard opening all my post this year x

I write my cards from my mum address book it lovely seeing her writing.She died last March so this is the second time i will not get a card from her.I lost my dad six years previously.I have brought a card that says Always in my heart mum and dad and its blank inside and you put your message in.It will take pride of place on my shelf

So hard. Some cards this year included a message about my daughter's death 8 months ago. Funeral was private, no intimations therefore some friends wouldn't be aware. Sent off last week, seemed to resurrect full blown grief again. Not the best time of year for a lot of people. Yet there is so much anger and anxiety about something that should, if you believe, be a joyous time.

My mum used to have a tiny little address book that came out every Christmas. She used to send cards to quite a lot of people that she hadn't seen for many years - people that had become friends when she and dad were first married or when she was at work.
After she died, 10 years ago, the number of cards that arrived, addressed to my parents dropped amazingly and I wonder if it was because the recipients had also died and my parents hadn't heard or they just assumed that my dad had gone before!
My own cards have dropped in number - just 12 this year as my aunts and uncles pass away and many friends send messages via Facebook.
Gone are the days when Royal Mail had to take on extra staff for delivering cards at Christmas.

Yes I too find Christmas cards bitter sweet. We often seem to hear bad news in them from the people we only hear from once a year. We lost one of our best friends just recently and it was very poignant receiving a card just from his wife.
Friends of my parents sent me a card asking me to remember them to my mother as last year my dad died and she won't remember who they are.

It is sad but a fact of life that people die, we'll be crossed off some time in the future! That's a cheerful thought, isn't it.
My great failing is not to update by address labels when I get a card with a new address then the following year I'm struggling to remember. RIghtmove can be useful if you know roughly when and where they moved.

So sad reading this. I only have to open my address book and begin my little factory of Christmas cards to see every page has crossings out. When young it was the changes of address but now the same names are struck through.

There are people I exchange cards with who I've not seen for 30 years.

I don't think that's important. I still think of them and value the memories.

Annodomini. I’ve learnt this year that losing a sibling is very different from losing a parent, which can be viewed as the natural order of things. A sibling, even an older one, not so much. I never dreamt of mine not being here.

This is the second Christmas that I have been estranged from my sister. I have sent her and her family a card as I did last year but she didn't send me one last year and has had no contact all year. I am SO sad about it. It would make my Christmas if a card from her plopped through the door onto the mat.

Looking at the tail end of this year's New Zealand calendar, I realised with great sadness that it was the last. My lovely sister, who sent me one every year, was cruelly taken from us in August by that dreadful Motor Neurone Disease. So no card, no calendar, no phone call. So bereft.

I feel so sad that i'll never open a card saying "Mum" again, even though I'm not a card person.

My daughter always bought me lovely ones, and I tried to always get her ones with meaningful words.

The hardest names to lose from my list was my parents. We lost Mum 3 years before Dad and it's always very hard at Christmas. As children we had amazing times, very little spare cash but we always had gifts and a stocking and never went hungry.

I know it's sad to write cards with only one name and receive them with the same. It get harder every year as we get older but we must remember too we are still here and enjoy what we have.

Happy to send no cards at all money went to two different charities instead. We used to laugh at mum my who would keep her really nice cards from year to year and put them up again. We would point out that some of the senders had died now but that did not put her off .
It used to be a badge of honour if you had lots of lovely cards .

Urmstongran Oh, you poor lass.

I suppose at our age, it's inevitable we'll lose people more often than we did in our youth. I try to be thankful that I had their friendship, as I'm sure you do too, and look back with pleasure on what we shared.

My card list has also had a swathe taken out of it in the past 15mths. I couldn’t bring myself to cross out names so I bought a new address book. Even so, one of the names from that has gone already.

Far worse, though, has been writing to tell people that my sister died earlier in the year. I went to see Frozen 2 this week and although it’s just a kids’ film, seeing the two sisters was bittersweet.

On the bright side, I’ve had a card from a friend who was too ill in the last two years to send cards so I’m very glad she is much improved.

Christmas is happy until the first year when you've lost a loved one - then it's bittersweet.

Doodle, people worry (too much) in case they upset you, but little mistakes are insignificant, like throwing a cup of water in a sea of grief. They worry that they'll 'remind' you - but it's not as if you've forgotten.

I really should have previewed before I posted. Those who have lost loved ones.

With not will

tanith so sorry for you.
My thoughts are will all those who have lost over ones, those estranged.
I received a card today from an old neighbour who’s husband died in April. Wish I’d got it before I sent a card addressed to them both.

This time of the year is when we miss those we love the most.

for you all.