Wishing someone a Merry Christmas has become so impersonal. I remember back in the day when my mom would sit at the table, with a notepad of plain white paper, under which she would stick a darkly lined paper so she could write out her Christmas letter…one at a time, individualized for the person she was writing it to…that she would then stick in the card that she would mail out.

I think I got 3 Christmas cards in the mail this year. There’s something so nice about getting a card, with my name hand-written on the envelope and a little personal note on the inside. Here were my 3 personal notes this year: “Hope Santa brings you a big black guy to ’stuff your stocking’”; “I remembered to write something this year”; and “Thanks for all the stories and laughs.” Simple, little notes that really show that I was really being thought of when the cards were going out.

For the record, I don’t do cards. I personally wished everyone a Merry Christmas, either to their face, or via e-mail. I sent out one test message on Christmas, that included the name of the person I sent it to. I got 20 text messages sent to me from someone going through their phones and checking off all the people they talked to once throughout the year. I got one from a number that I don’t even know!

The most personal Christmas wish I got was from my friend Twyla. Because of my trip last week to Mexico, I wasn’t going to make it home to Saskatchewan to be with my family, so Twyla, who lives upstairs, ditched her family to fall asleep on my couch while watching movies. She came down in her Christmas outfit.