It was during the first week of November this year.  That’s when He’s mailbox saw its first Christmas card.  Just like other years it was from a fund-raising organization.  And just like other years it was indeed a real Christmas card.  Unlike other years it came seven weeks before Christmas – impressively early even by fundraiser standards.

We like Christmas cards here.  They’ve been bought and counted and soon will be signed.  Most will get a hand written note scrawled inside it.  They will be addressed and stamped and put out for the mailperson.  Not as many as in years past but all to the best of recipients.  The most deserving.  The crème de la crème. But none of that just yet.  Not until sometime after Thanksgiving, probably a couple of weeks into December.  Even at Christmas mail only takes a couple or three days to get just about anywhere.  That’s real First Class service.

And that reminds us…back in the day when our parents were sending out Christmas cards there was Second Class mail in the US.  What ever happened to it?   Way back then one could send a card or letter by second class mail.  It seemed the only requirement was that the correspondence could not be sealed.  In exchange for the risk of just about anybody reading your mail (not unlike a postcard), postage was a penny less than First Class mail.  That was when First Class mail was something like six cents.  Today’s USPS rate sheet doesn’t even include the words Second Class but there is something called First Class for Businesses that’s cheaper than retail (read “real people”) Frist Class at 38 cents versus 49 cents.  Hmmm.  We wonder.

Somewhere along the way the post office lost its way a bit.  They’ve lost their share of mail also but that’s not the point here.  It seems to us that whether its 49 cents or 38 cents or $5.75 (that’s for Priority Mail), it’s still a deal to get a letter to any address in the country.  The other guys charge at least $13.50 for two day service and they lose packages also.  Back to the post office, it has lost its way a bit.  Between some late deliveries and salary issues, and whether to deliver or not deliver on Saturday and the general ineptitude that comes from any government agency (they say they aren’t but they really are), some people are losing faith in the service.  But every year around this time more people are planning on counting on the USPS to send their Christmas greetings to the masses.  Not by e-mail, not by text, and certainly not at $13.50 a piece.  Nope, those cards and letters are going by the old stand-by, the post office.

Most of them will go out sometime after Thanksgiving, probably a couple of weeks into December.  With their flaps seals shut.  First Class.  All the way.

Now that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you.