Real mail season

""Hoping for mail," 5 x 7 watercolor holiday greeting card

Remember the expectation of going to the mail box, the joy of getting real mail?

Not the deluge of campaign ads, nor the constant barrage of other advertising that arrives every day. My first stop from the mail box is the outdoor trash receptacle.

The same is true of the flood of email messages that show up in my in-box every day. A daily chore. Scan and delete most of them. Since retirement, thankfully the flood of mundane, often unnecessary work-related stuff has ended. But still, rarely is there anything significant...certainly not exciting--remember how we were excited when email first started? No "You've-got-mail" anticipation. Not now.

But what is still exciting--as in can't-wait-to-open-it, are the rare times when real mail, handwritten from friends and family, shows up.

The walk to the mail box, a real mail box, was worth it.

If there is a season when more of that happens it is the holiday season. Thus today's watercolor.