Writing Letters

I was tidying up my Christmas cards last week. They are getting fewer as time goes on and more people communicate with me via WhatsApp. Some friends still write me a Christmas letter and I really enjoy this. It is so rare to get a handwritten letter these days. To be honest, as my writing has deteriorated in direct relation to how often I use my laptop, my friends all get a typed letter from me. I would be ashamed to inflict my scrawl on them. I used to have nice handwriting though.

I am old enough to remember letters as the usual way of communicating, especially if you lived abroad as I did. Phone calls were expensive so only made in emergencies usually. I know that I wrote to my siblings once a month, filling at least four sheets of A4 with my handwritten news. It would take me over an hour to get everything down in a legible hand. I remember, too, what fun it was to receive letters from family and friends. I would usually wait until I had a quiet time in the day to read them. I'd make myself a cup of tea and take my time over each letter. Some of my correspondents were better at communicating than others, of course, although all letters were very welcome.

Looking back, I have to ask myself: what did we write about? Did we have more fun in those days, more things to communicate? The kids were small,of course, and a lot of news centered around them and their progress. We wrote to each other about places we'd visited, about people who had visited us and about our return visits to them. We added snippets of news about politics or the latest scandals. We always seemed to have something to say and we took the time to write it.

Clicking on an email is no substitute for the pleasure of receiving an envelope with your name and address on it and the certainty that the letter it contains will entertain you as no perusal of Facebook, WhatsApp or Instagram can - despite the photos which you can click through at leisure.