How Email Has Ruined My Holiday Joy You gotta love email, right? It’s fast, easy and free. While I admit that these days email is something I can’t live without, I have to say, it’s just about darn near ruined one of my little pleasures in life: checking my postal mailbox.

There’s a part of me that must just be that old school that I can remember a time when people actually used to write letters to one another to stay in touch. Getting a personal letter at the end of a long and difficult day was truly a treasure. I’d open up the letter and savor its contents, appreciating the stationary on which it was written and the careful selection of words used to communicate whatever news its author was telling. Even the sign-off was an important clue to your relationship at that moment in time: was it “Love” or “Hugs & kisses” or “xxooxxoo” or just a simply, “Yours truly”? Oftentimes I would save these physical letters in drawers, boxes or scrapbooks to re-read or recall a special occasion.

Nowadays, all that has changed. Nothing good arrives in my postal mailbox except for the occasional magazine. Everything else is crap: bills, junk mail, and unwanted catalogs. Even now, during the holidays when people still send the obligatory Christmas card, do I no longer look forward to emptying my mailbox. The whole daily experience is just a total let down. My poor postal carrier: I don’t even look forward to seeing his mail truck drive up the street anymore. I wonder if he and his peers have noticed this kind of waning enthusiasm from all their route customers?

To make my point more clearly, let’s compare email and postal mail:

• Does anyone really get excited about getting emails these days? I’d have to say no. Do I look forward to launching my emailbox, the equivalent of opening my postal mail box? Gosh, no. Do I rush to open my email? Hell no! Can I sift through my email box to find non-standard envelopes that typically indicate personal letters? Nope, can’t do that. Worse still, I’m a person who without spam filters would get 300+ emails a day, so I can genuinely say that I actually rue email-filled days... and rarely do I get a respite.
  
  
• Does anyone really treasure the process of reading an email? No, not really. Maybe if it’s from a family or friend you’ll get a kick out of the content; or, if the author happens to be very clever and witty it’ll be a good read. But treasure an email – doubtful.
  
  
• With email, can you distinguish the sender just from that person’s handwriting style? No. And for those of us who have ever gotten a kick out of trying to decipher someone’s really bad handwriting, gone are those days of mystery.
  
  
• Is there anything physically appealing about an email? Any lipstick kisses sealing the envelope closed? Any spots or splotches indicating what the sender might have been doing with your letter before sending it? Any way of dabbing the email with a favorite perfume? Any insertions of cash or small tokens? Nope, nada, niente.
  

It’s hard for me to imagine that there is now a whole generation of younger people who really don’t even understand this lost joy. To them, email, text messaging and chat rule. But at least I can make allowances for them because they know no different. What I’m really saddened by is that the abandonment of letter-writing has happened universally, parents and grandparents alike. People of all ages have slipped into an email vegetative state. We’re all too pressed for time or too lazy to act any differently.

So for those of you as disgusted as I am by the state of your postal mailbox each day, I say TAKE A STAND! Pick up a pen and write a letter! Make it fun or friendly or passionate or tender. Put a little heart and soul into the endeavor. Break out of your digital shell!!

You might actually enjoy the experience, and your postal carrier and your recipient will thank you.

Labels: email, holiday

  4:09 PM •