Christmas is a time of family, friends and fond memories. My fondest Christmas memory is a Christmas card sent to me by my future husband – though I didn’t have a clue about that back then.
Christmas and New Year’s Eve have always been dear to my heart. You could be reverent, and happy all the time. It was a time of love – to do for others – to give of yourself. I learned to tie the perfect bow for all the little presents I learned how to wrap.
This particular year, I was single and working for Texaco. My design and logo “Happy Holly Days” had been adopted for the company Christmas party. I helped tie the bows for the give-away poinsettias. I had purchased the perfect green taffeta dress for the party – and I thought I was in love.
But then, my world fell apart. The guy I had been dating dropped me – no reason. (But he later went to the Christmas party with a different woman. Who knew? Not me.) And I had the absolute worst day at work – too much pressure from too many deadlines getting finished before the holiday break. I came home to an empty apartment for a good crying fest.
On the way to the apartment, I opened my mailbox and there was my first Christmas card. I didn’t recognize the return address. I brought it into the house, got a sparkling water to drink and sat down to discover the sender.
I opened the envelope to discover a card displaying a solo frontiersman paddling a birch bark canoe on a wintry river on the front of the card.
Top inside, it read: “Times change and we with time, but not in the ways of friends.”
The main part of the card read: “Let us keep Christmas holding it close to our hearts for its meaning never ends and its spirit is the warmth and joy of remembering friends.”
It was signed Roy Edwards in his flowing script.
I lost it. I had a good cry, then got out one of my cards and poured out my heart to him. Don’t ask me why – I hadn’t really talked with Roy since we destroyed his new canoe on a low water bridge on a canoe trip back in March. Oh, I had seen him at the canoe club meetings I had attended with the guy who dumped me as Roy was the Commodore of the club, but we only talked in passing at monthly meetings. But his card was perfect – and perfectly timed.
I mailed my card to Roy and the next thing I knew he called me at work to ask me to his company’s Christmas party. (I have no idea how he got that number.) I have to tell you; I almost didn’t go because I didn’t really know him. If it hadn’t been for a lady I worked with encouraging me to go, I would have made the worst mistake of my life. So, I went with him. I don’t know how it happened, maybe it was the atmosphere (he worked for a beer distributorship and the employees had turned the warehouse into a winter wonderland), or the belt-buckle polishing dance to “Lost in the 50’s Tonight,” but magic happened.
As the evening came to an end, he asked me out again – but this time I did not hesitate. I never felt like this before with anyone I had dated. He was the one. From then on, we were inseparable. On New Year’ Eve the following year, we were married.
Roy passed away last year, but I still have that Christmas card that started it all.
