The Best Kind of Cards

I have been really lazy with the Christmas cards in the recent years. I used to be able to find time to write cards to all of my friends and their dogs, too. When I first started working as a teacher, I gave a card to each staff member, including the school custodian. This year, I sent NOTHING! NADA! ZERO! Not even to my bestest friends. Not even to family. Not even to my neighbours and I'm a few feet away from them. I feel so awful about it. I don't want to be the kind of person who writes cards only to those who have given me cards -- I would write cards to the people I care about, regardless of whether or not they have sent me one. But, apparently, I don't care about anybody this season.

I feel worse, knowing that some people do care about this tradition and care enough about me to write a card. I have received wonderful Christmas cards in the past and some of the notable ones are the personally-crafted kinds or photo cards or ones with personalized messages in them. My absolute favourites are the ones from kids / my students. Those cards carry sincere messages that come from their hearts, even when not much has been said. I want to share this one with you:

"To Chan From ____"

This Grade 7 student hates reading and he hates writing (only because he has such great difficulty with reading and writing, I believe). He couldn't even spell his name properly. But, he put in his best effort (I could tell by the size of his letters) for this card. When he gave me the card, he tossed it nonchalantly on the table toward me, but when I opened it in front of him, I could tell he was really proud that I was so happy to receive it.