Design Crafters

Many families send out photo Christmas cards each holiday season nowadays, but it turns out photo Christmas cards are not as modern as one might think. They may not have been very common (or inexpensive) back in the 1920s but it certainly wasn’t completely unheard of.  To illustrate this, let me tell you a friend’s story.

My friend LeeAnn was helping her grandparents clean out their attic a few months ago.  Pushed way to the back of the attic, in a dark and dusty corner, she found an old steamer trunk full of family treasures.  Beneath a family heirloom quality baby’s christening gown, she discovered a box full of photos and Christmas Cards. One set of Christmas cards stood out as this stack was all tied together with a ribbon. They were from the same family, dated 1920s through the 1930s. Each card was carefully handmade and had a photo pasted onto it of the family for each year there was a card.

It turned out that LeAnn’s grandmother was in fact raised by her Aunt and Uncle instead of her birth parents. When she was born her parents were dirt poor and couldn’t afford to raise her, so her Aunt and Uncle raised her as their own. As time went on, her grandmother’s birth parents (who she knew as Aunt and Uncle), became financially stable and had more children. By that time it would be best for her to stay with the parents she already knew. Every year her birth family would make it a point to send her handmade photo Christmas cards.  It wasn’t until her late teens she discovered the true relationship and realized why she was the only one to receive the only photo Christmas card they would make that year.

What a lovely example of how important a family’s Christmas card can become to someone over time.  Maybe it’s time for your own family to make a little family history with a photo Christmas card this holiday season.

Although this story isn’t about photo Christmas cards in particular, I thought it would be a nice one for you to hear. We often here only the negative experiences people have with airlines, but ABC11 Troubleshooter Diane Wilson turns the tables a bit when shares with us her personal, uplifting experience she had with Northwest Airlines.

For Christmas, she met her fiancés family for the first time. At that time she also asked her fiancés mother for pictures of the family to display at the wedding. His mom went above and beyond for this request by having the photos blown up and touched up. After all of that time and effort, Diane and her fiancé accidentally left the envelope of pictures in the overhead compartment. All efforts to track it down were fruitless. What was she going to tell her future in-laws?

After about a month, one of the relatives received the pictures in the mail. How could this be?  Apparently inside the envelope of pictures was the address of the relative who touched them up. Someone at Northwest Airlines actually took the time and personal initiative to mail those photos back.  Talk about going the extra mile.

This story is especially amazing to me because of my own personal experience trying to retrieve lost items. In our case it was actually the car rental place located at the airport. I know for a fact that my son’s friends’ new jacket and soccer ball were in that rental car, but despite all efforts, they apparently disappeared into thin air.

The original story can be found at:
http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=news/troubleshooter&id=5804035