12.19.2002

 

For the first time in some while, I will not be sending holiday cards out this year, and I feel really guilty about it.

In past years I've made something of a herculian effort to get greeting cards out, each one sprinkled with a personal message amounting to more than just a few generic lines of "hoping you have a safe and wonderful holiday season and new year." I took pride in trying to treat each recipient of one of my cards as a distinct individual deserving of something special from me, because that's the way I felt about them, that whether I saw them every day or only once a year, I remembered them with fondness and thought about them more than just occasionally.

This year the grind of law school, preparing for finals and the distraction of having to travel 4,300 miles within 48 hours for my grandmother's memorial service amounted to just a little too much for me to find the time and the stamina to make a holiday card effort up to my own personal standards. I considered the merits of sending generic cards with little but a few lines of "Happy Holidays" or the like, but either I just decided that I was too lazy and stretched to do that or I decided that I wouldn't feel satisfied with a sub-par effort. Regardless of the reason, I simply did not have it in me this year, and as I have started to receive cards from friends, the guilt is gnawing at my sides.

I thought about sending out one giant email to everyone today in place of an actually card, but I decided against it on the grounds that I wouldn't want to run the chance of offending anyone. Giant emails are never the best of things, and sending one to cover for a holiday card seems to me like a potential slap in the face. So this year, I'm hoping that silence really is golden.

I hope everyone understands.