Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow?

It's not often that The HesterMan and I have trouble in the communication department. For all our faults as a couple, there is one thing we have always been pretty good at...and that is talking with one another. We have never had to work really hard at how to approach one another with words...formulating sentences..carefully speaking diplomatically to one another. We have had to work really hard at other things, but not necessarily the "gift of gab." (That may be my gift...and his is the gift of listening. Your guess is as good as mine. :))

But our stellar communication skills went out the door recently when I asked Gregg to mail out our Christmas cards. If you have been following my blog at all (and who hasn't!!), you know what a thorn in my side these Christmas cards have been. They shouldn't be like that...but I have made it that way by waiting to the last minute to complete them. Right before we left for Michigan, I laid on my sick throne of a bed, and tried to complete as many as I could before growing faint and weary. (A little dramatic here, but people enjoy drama.) I sealed the last one with a sense of victory, knowing that the postmark would be the day before Christmas, and somehow that gets me in the window of punctuality. I handed the pile of cards to Gregg and said, "These need to be mailed before we leave." I was amazed that he didn't "throw a fit" about going to the post office when we were supposed to be hitting the road momentarily. I chalked it up to the wonderful serving nature of my husband, and moved onto the next task to get us out the door and on the road.

Fast forward a week later, and I am approaching my mailbox at midnight, having just returned from a Youth Event at church. I couldn't remember sending the girls out earlier in the day to retrieve the mail, so I was pretty sure it was still in the box. And boy, was there ever!!!!! In the darkness of the night, I pulled a card out of the mailbox that had stamped upon it, "RETURN FOR POSTAGE." "Oh," I thought to myself, "the stamp must have fallen off this one." Not good, but I will just stick another on it, and beg for mercy from its recipients later. As I reached in to get the rest of the mail, I felt a bundle of mail held together tightly by a rubber band. "What on earth is this?" I muttered in the blackness of midnight. Imagine my "horror" when I realized it was all of our Christmas cards....WITHOUT STAMPS ON THEM. Gregg had followed my instructions to a "t," never noticing that when I had handed him the bundle a week prior, the cards had no stamps on them AND THEY STILL DIDN'T!!!

I wanted so desperately to wake him up when I walked into the house with the bundle under my arm. I couldn't figure out how he didn't notice there were no stamps on these things. I approached our bedroom with the soundtrack of his snoring in the background, ready to shake him awake for an explanation. But it just wasn't worth it. It really didn't matter. There was nothing I could do about now. And who wants to be startled from a deep sleep while being attacked over silly stamps. It could wait until the morning. I was pretty sure I knew what happened anyway.

So, if you haven't received a Christmas Card from the Hesterfamily yet, it may be on its way shortly to a mailbox near you. If you never get one, accept this belated salutation from our family to yours, and know in our hearts that we wished you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!!

**Hestercouple New Year's Resolution #1- Mean what you say, and say what you mean. If you want him to go to the post office, TELL HIM. This home needs to be an "Assumption Free Zone." :)