Pip Speaks! Holiday Tip #2 - Christmas Cards

Hello everyone, it's me, Pip, again!  My Ma told me that you liked my earlier post, and read me your comments, and it made me so happy.  Because unlike a lot of other kitties, I'm a talker, and love to have people (or anyone else!) listen to me.

So now I want to talk to you about these:

Christmas cards!  Or, if you don't celebrate Christmas, Holiday cards!  We love getting them at our house, and after we've gotten quite a few, my Ma likes to hang them on our garden door as part of our decorations.

(Us kitties like to bat at them, which is not really something our Ma and Da like, but that's another story.)

Anyway, my Ma was annoyed the other day, because someone told her that she should not be sending out Christmas cards, because it was a waste of paper, and not good for the environment.  She was telling us that a lot of cards nowadays are made of recycled paper, and they can also be recycled, so there is that.  But mostly, she was reminding us that Christmas cards can have a life beyond the one they have on one Christmas when you get them.  Here is how it works at our house.

We always send out Christmas cards to our relatives and friends, and it's marked as being from all of us.  Which I think is nice, because sometimes we get cards from people we know have animals in their families, but the don't sign their names.  I think that is mean.   But that too, is another story.

Anyway, when we take down our decorations after Chrismastime and put them away, my Ma takes the cards and puts them together with a rubber band with the other things.  Then the next year, she pulls them out when she is getting ready to send cards again, to see who sent cards and who will still get cards.***  Then she takes any that are not pictures of people we know, and she separates the front of the card from the inside where people have signed their names.  Any that have writing on the inside of the front of the card just get recycled, but otherwise, she collects the fronts, and sends them to a place called the Seamen's Church Institute of New York and New Jersey for their Christmas at Sea program.  The people who are in charge of that program use the fronts of the Christmas cards as gift tags for the presents they give out.  I think it must be nice to not only get a present like a scarf or something when you weren't expecting it, and then have a pretty gift card on it as well.  My Ma says that it probably makes some people feel extra special on Christmas (and that makes me feel good too, since we usually help her get things apart and ready to send).

So my tip for today is to think before your say to someone else that they shouldn't send out Christmas cards, or that they are doing something bad for the environment.  Because you can see from what I wrote that you can enjoy sending and getting cards and still be recycling them in a way that gives others a smile on Christmas Day.

Everyone at our house smiles a lot on Christmas Day, and all through Christmastime.  But if we couldn't be together, I would like to think that we would have a reason to smile because we knew that somewhere, someone was thinking of us.

My Ma just told me that this post was long enough, but I have two more things to tell you.  One is that there are only EIGHTEEN DAYS left until Christmas Day!!!! and, the second thing is that some people who get cards from us will see my picture on their stamp!

Me dressed up like Santa!

OK, bye until next time.  Love, Pip

***Like so many things our Ma does, she has a "system" for Christmas cards.  She is also the only one who understands it.