The Christmas cards are arriving in the mail fast and furious, taking the place of catalogs and magazines in the mailbox.

With every red and green envelope I open, my anxiety eases a bit. I was really concerned that maybe no one would send Christmas cards this year, instead relying on e-mails.

A radio news story this week described the decline of Christmas card use in favor of paperless e-mails as a way to wish others a joyous holiday season.

(If anyone would like to see what an e-mailed Christmas card looks like, corner Gazette editor Bruce Crosby who has "sent" them in the past. I don't know if he's taking that route this year, but I'll likely be eliminated from his e-mail list with my complaints about e-mailed Christmas greetings.)

I read each and every Christmas letter. I take in each and every card cover. I place each and every one into the card stand by the kitchen door, where they will be arranged and rearranged 23 times by multiple small hands before they are removed after Christmas.

I must admit that at the end of the holiday season I don't know what to do with all these Christmas cards. Some feature family pictures, while others have beautiful covers. Others have words of wisdom, while others list kids' names that I can't remember.

My initial solution is to pack the cards away for the season with the decorations and deal with them the following December, giving myself an 11-month reprieve.

As the multitude of santas and angels emerge from the boxes, so do the year-old Christmas cards. This year, I'm actually trying to be creative with the old cards -- not a small task for someone as craft-challenged as I am.

Using a pair of scissors purchased from the scrapbooking aisle, I've cleverly fashioned the cards from last year into gift tags for this year's gifts. In reality, the decorative scissors made it look like I hastily ripped the pictures from the cards and didn't do a good job of ripping, either.

As long as I don't hear any complaints about not being able to read a name on Christmas morning, I'll have succeeded.

For those who don't like the waste of Christmas cards or letters, a solution may be in sight (or rather out-of-sight).

Xerox is currently working on a paper which self-erases in about 16 to 24 hours. Or it can be immediately erased when heated. It can be reused up to 50 times before beginning to disintegrate. It's been suggested as an alternative for law firms, business offices, anyone with a copier.

But think of the other uses, in particular when it comes to Christmas letters. If the paper returns to its blank status, the receivers wouldn't have to worry about what to do with the letter or the card. It can simply be reused for the following year's letter.

Since the paper lasts less than a day, it currently wouldn't be practical for letters sent through the mail. Upon opening the letter, the receiver would be standing there with a blank piece of paper wondering why you wasted a stamp.

But if the researchers could develop a paper which lasts a few weeks before fading away, think of the possibilities.

Do you send the same Christmas letter, year after year, repeating the same accomplishments? Many people do this, but few people take the time to dig out the previous year's letter and compare.

Did you embellish some of your accomplishments in last year's letter? Let someone try to prove it when all they have is a blank sheet of paper.

Were you foolish enough to claim that you were going to run a marathon this year but never got around to that little thing called training? With only a blank sheet of holiday paper, no one can look it up to see if you really said it.

Let the embellishments begin.

*

While you may still be deciding about the status of your Christmas cards and letters, another decision may still be waiting in the wings: Whether to hang Christmas lights.

At what point does it become a lost cause to hang Christmas lights? Even if I manage to get my lights up on the outside of my house this weekend, the lights will have sat on the front porch waiting longer than they will be lit for the holidays.

Of course, I could overcome that issue by just leaving them up longer and calling them Easter lights.

 

-- Ronda Graff is sending out a family photo Christmas card with all six kids looking in different directions or scrambling to get up. She's going for realism.