Holiday cards and the lost art of letter writing

"I’ve always been a writer. Not just out here in public, where everyone and anyone can read me, but privately, in the comfort of my home, at my desk, or curled up on my my sofa, lap tray, pens, paper and postage stamps in place. I am a letter writer. A compulsive letter writer.

It’s a compulsion that manifests itself in the months leading up to Christmas, months when I haul out my once finely honed Palmer penmanship - once done with Parker fountain pen, inkwell and blotters - taught in grueling detail by the nuns at the French Catholic school of my childhood. Honed further still by my mother, whose penchant for cards, notes, letters and postcards were unrivaled in our neighborhood. I get it from her. And her mother and father before her."

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