Christmas cards.
An American staple this time of year…
Some send cards featuring an assortment of religious scenes, red & green decor, and snowy landscapes, while others send professional photos of their household, grandchildren, pets, etc…
When you get a Christmas card in the mail, it’s from people you know, right?
RIGHT?!
One day my parents received a Christmas card in the mail. I was living with them at the time, so I remember the day this happened. My mom walked in the kitchen, opened the envelope, and was silent for a moment and asked me, “Do you know these people?”
She gave me the card and it was one of those family photo collage types. It featured a white couple with several young children. They gave us their names too.
“No,” I said. “Do you not know them? Lol”
My mom replied, “I really don’t.”
She then called for my dad to come into the kitchen and showed him the card. He asked who they were and we both said WE DON’T KNOW.
What was weird is that it was addressed specifically to my parents names ‘and family‘. -and it came from SOUTH CAROLINA. (We live in North Carolina). I remember we were all trying to brainstorm as to how these people possibly knew us… We felt embarrassed slightly because it MUST be someone we actually really do know – they are just locked away in our memory… but we never could recall. Daddy preaches, so it’s possible that maybe they heard Daddy preach at some point? But still… WHY WOULD THEY SEND A CHRISTMAS CARD knowing he wouldn’t know them if that was the case? This idea was wiped off the table early on. We don’t think that’s what happened. Who gave them our address?
They DID provide us with a return address, but like…. what were we supposed to do? Write them a letter demanding to know how they know us? The cards never had a ‘threatening aura.’ Lol.
We brushed it off that year as just something laughable – that we surely knew them from SOMEWHERE, but we were all too stupid to remember. We figured it would ‘hit us’ at some point…
but that point never came. Lol
The NEXT year, another mystery card showed up. From the same mystery family. More family photos too.
We still had NO IDEA who they were. I mean, their NAMES were on the card, but it meant nothing to us. We had NEVER MET THEM in our lives.
This continued for the next 10 YEARS.
We looked for these mystery people on facebook, but we never found them. I tried to convince my parents to reach out on their profiles with a post to see if anybody knew them, but they were worried they might embarrass themselves. lol
and so it was…
Every year, we looked forward to getting the creepy Christmas card. It became a holiday tradition that we laughed and laughed about. We eagerly awaited its arrival.
“OMG Did it come yet?!”
“YES IT DID! LOL”
We watched these random children grow up into adults via these Christmas cards, and their parents aged right along with them. We watched a generation of people grow up via a mail subscription we never asked for, for a DECADE. Their faces made us smile and chuckle about how disturbing it was that we couldn’t figure out how they knew us…
Some of the cards even included handwritten well-wishes.
After I got married and moved out, the addition of ‘and family’ ceased on the cards.
Which creeped us out.
DID THEY KNOW MY PARENTS WERE NOW EMPTY NESTERS?
As intriguing as this tale is; regrettably, the cards mysteriously ceased in 2019.
It was the first year we didn’t get one.
Did they finally realize they didn’t know us either?
Did they think my parents were rude because they never received one back?
Did they all die???
Alas, we will never know.
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