Atlanta, GA
December 21, 2025
Years ago, we lost the habit of sending Christmas cards. But as season’s greetings grace our mail and remind us of family and friends we seldom see, we’ve decided it’s time to re-embrace the custom.
It ostensibly started in Victorian England, when Sir Henry Cole commissioned cards designed with Christmas scenes that could be duplicated and sent to all his friends.
Since we frequently lament lost traditions, sustaining the easy ones is the least we can do. And never let it be said we don’t do the least we can do!
But what we’re reviving is less the tradition of Christmas cards than of what preceded them. Before the 1840s, Brits would write lengthy letters to each other and deliver them every December.
Sir Cole was seeking a way to speed things up. In recent years, that was our goal too. We achieved it by doing nothing at all.
Yet scattered friends, lost loved ones, and an empty nest remind us to not take relationships for granted. At some point our mailbox could be empty, and there may be no one who’ll care to receive our card.
We should appreciate and reciprocate the good wishes people send. This note is my attempt to do so.
Different Directions
On Christmas we’ll be with my mother, brother and his family. Most years we are, but last year we weren’t.
Our son, Alexander, was stationed in Arizona, and unable to travel outside the state. Rather than leave him alone, we spent Christmas in Sedona.
From the desert we returned to Atlanta to start the new year. Our sons went different directions: one southwest to Auburn; the other northeast to Athens.
Alexander graduated from Auburn with a degree in Biomedical Sciences. But he’s always wanted to be an airline pilot.
Upon graduation, he joined the Alabama Air National Guard, where he works on F-35s while preparing to be in the cockpit. Based in Montgomery, Alexander lives in Auburn… understandably loath to leave the “Loveliest Village”.
David is a junior at the University of Georgia, where he was selected for the Institute for Leadership Advancement, is active in a wonderful fraternity, and is studying Finance, Information Systems, and Sport Management.
He plans to work in sports and is off to a good start. He worked for the Atlanta Braves in July.
The previous month he helped the Georgia Bulldogs assess potential high school football recruits. For the Fall, the team offered him a job assisting prominent alums and other VIPs at home games, when he’s with the team on the field.
For his sake we hope Georgia wins a ring. If they do, David gets one too (or several, depending on how many bowls they win).
As Georgia Tech graduates, we’ve never rooted for our rivals in Athens. But during these playoffs we’ll make an exception. We love our son more than we dislike the Dawgs.
Aside from this indiscreet confession, we’ll conceal our treason to Tech. Especially since Rita is currently Chair of the Georgia Tech Alumni Board of Trustees.
She assumed that role in July, and it’s been her honor to serve. Among the perks was being a featured speaker at this month’s graduation ceremonies, and riding the Ramblin’ Wreck in the Homecoming Parade.
Active Year
This has been an active year that was often hectic, though less chaotic than recent ones. Each of us kept busy, but in similar roles we’d already been playing.
Rita is Executive Director of Corporate Responsibility at Georgia Power, and remains active throughout the Atlanta community. Alexander enjoys living in Auburn, being part of the Guard, and working with planes while becoming a pilot. And David is thriving thru the back half of college.
Several years ago I left corporate life. Tapping my background in engineering, finance, analytics, and economics, I invest and write while cultivating skills I’d let languish.
Among those are speaking Spanish and French, picking up piano, and being able to build. I spent two weeks in November at the Shelter Institute in Maine, where I completed an extensive course designing and constructing a house.
The Best Part
But a family reunion punctuated our year. With my mother, brother, sister-in-law and nieces, we spent two weeks in east Africa.
The four of us started with a weekend in Paris. It’s a city we love and where I once worked, but that neither of our sons had ever seen. After our brief sojourn, we flew to Tanzania and met the rest of our family.
From Arusha, we ventured into Ngorongoro and across the Serengeti before entering Kenya under the eye of Kilimanjaro.
Amid elephants at Amboseli we visited a Masai village. We watched David hit a hole-in-one (his second) while golfing beneath Mt Kenya, spent a morning at a school in the Masai Mara, and surveyed the scene from a balloon in the sky.
But the best part was being together. Our family sees each other far too infrequently. To do so in an exotic place, with no distractions, and little cell service was a rare privilege at a time when electronics push people apart despite keeping them “connected”.
As Christmas approaches, we look forward to reconvening, and to letting time slow. While it lingers we’ll appreciate what matters, and remember why it does.
Whatever prompts the recollection… be it shepherds in a field, a star in the sky, a Heavenly angel, or a passing stranger who offers a smile… I hope you receive it.
I guess that’s all this card was really meant to say.
Merry Christmas.
JD, Rita, Alexander, and David
👍👍👍 🎄🎄🎄 🎁🎁🎁 🎀🎀🎀 🎆🎆🎆 !!!
Many thanks for all your beautifully composed posts in 2025 !!!
Wonderful sentiment sensitively stated, especially the last sentence: " As Christmas approaches, we look forward to reconvening, and to letting time slow. While it lingers, we’ll appreciate what matters, and remember why it does."