Years ago I started a tradition that today is hard to follow through with, but I still work on it.  I could never manage to send Christmas cards because life was too busy.  By the time I worked and shopped and made sure Christmas happened for the kids, Christmas cards just continually fell to the back of the list.  So I started sending New Year’s Cards.  These were cards sent to people who had an impact on my life in the previous year.

The message was something like this  “As we start a New Year, it is always important to remember the people who are important to me.  Thank you for having an impact on my life over the past year and for being a part of my world…” and then I personalized it.  These cards went to people that I worked with, my bosses, people that called me at just the right time, folks that I volunteered with, just those people who made a positive impact.  I tried really hard to think about the whole year, not just the previous quarter.

Sometimes the cards went to my kid’s teacher, sometimes to a local cop, sometimes to the mayor or the newspaper editor.  Mostly it was the people closest to me, it falls in with the Thanksgiving emails I still send.  Now, I can’t just send normal cards, I make cards all year long to send as New Year’s cards.  My favorite part about the experience is the thank you’s I get for essentially sending thank you’s out.  It’s kind of funny like that.

It used to be I sat and watched the Rose Parade in my jammies while I wrote the cards.  Now I’m at the Rose Parade and I don’t have a tv, so it’s a little harder to get my cards done, but I’m determined. They may not get mailed until February, but they will get mailed.  My goal was to give respect and appreciation, what I found happens is that it brightens someone’s day, and I love that.  What have you done to brighten someone’s day today?