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Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

Christmas Cards

19 January, 1999 - 00:00

Quite some time has passed since our family last hunted the festively decorated
city for Christmas gifts and postcards. The city and our life have changed
considerably. A phenomenon neither good nor bad, for it just happens and
there is nothing anyone can do about it.

Another things seems very strange. While recognizing the naturalness
and even necessity of important changes, accepting something new and unfamiliar
gradually becoming part our daily existence, complaining about things past
and present, fearing future changes, we all desperately try to find some
stability.

Previously we would buy over two hundred brightly colored postcard to
send Christmas and New Year's greetings. And the choice was considerably
sparser than now. There were many, many people to address the cards to,
friends who were then alive, in good health, and made no plans to emigrate
or turned into strangers with vacant eyes. And the cards were not bought
wholesale, each would be carefully chosen and mailed with the hope that
the addressee would enjoy both the message and design.

At that time fresh shipments of printed matter from friendly socialist
countries at the Friendship Bookstore on Khreshchatyk were a very special
occasion. There would be noisy lines of impatient customers in and outside
the premises, when new acquaintances would be made, some eventually to
grow into something more romantic, and all kinds of consultations asked
for and received free. In addition to books and cards, Christmas tree decorations
and toys were a specialty. They were really good, and as the line moved
on people would drift from the bookshelves to the counters displaying rope
baskets with shining frosted little globes, balls, cones, and figurines.

Back home the precious purchase, Christmas gifts, was carefully unpacked
and hidden away in the remotest nooks and crannies, which everyone in the
family knew, of course, so we would spend the week before Christmas turning
the place upside down, groping in the wardrobe, cupboards, keeping our
eyes honestly shut, lest we spoil our parent's surprise. Christmas tree
decorations were wrapped up in cotton stored somewhere on upper shelves
until the exciting time came to start decorating the tree. And the cards...

Shining polished stacks would be evenly divided among the family, whereupon
everybody would be immersed in creative writing, trying to make every message
read nonstandard, sharing warm sincere words with friends and relatives.

And then the cards would be mailed off to Moscow, Leningrad, Tbilisi,
Sukhumi, Riga, Tallinn, Voronezh, Kharkiv, Kherson, Skadovsk, the Urals,
Siberia, and the Soviet Far East. And many were addressed to Kyiv, for
telephones were a luxury rather than a necessity then.

On such days we had a hard time opening our mailbox bursting with letters
and cards.

Aunt Niura came with a small pack of cards: she could not write and
the task was enthusiastically undertaken by my grandmother. We loved Aunt
Niura so and were happy to do anything for her.

She was about 80, and her face was like a baked apple with two huge
plums of dark beautiful eyes. She worked every day, washing floors and
cleaning apartments in all of our huge communal apartment building. And
she was happy that there was so much work to do, because her son visited
seldom (it means that he was happily married and preferred to stay home
with wife and children). She was pleased when her grandsons secretly showed
their behavior reports with entries about cut classes (it meant that the
poor kids had just relaxed, away from classroom boredom and its stuffy
atmosphere; on such occasions she would sign the report lest they have
to upset their father and mother). She was always glad to see us. She believed
that every man should live to make others happy. I had no idea at the time
that learning to live like that was so difficult.

On December 31, at eleven in the evening, a smiling postman would bring
the largest and most beautiful greeting telegram one could find at the
main Post Office, reading: "Dearest Viktoriya, my beloved girl, greetings
and the best of everything! Be well and behave like a good girl, for this
will make us all happy. Yours, loving Aunt Niura."

I knew that she had come in the morning and gone to the post office
with my granny or mother. They had often to go themselves and write and
pay for a telegram (because it was too expensive for the old woman), but
she would always angrily refuse. It was of vital importance for her to
be present and dictate the text. She had broken the rule only once in twenty
years. On that particular occasion I realized at once that someone else
had composed the text, for it lacked her many warm phrases.

This year, as last, our mailbox did not strain against the pressure
of letters and cards. Good thing the phone kept ringing and all who wanted
to call did so, meaning only that there were so few friends left.

Yet I thought that no matter how much life changes certain things remain
the same. We just need to be reminded of them more often. Aunt Niura has
long moved to another world which, I am sure, is wonderful and just. So
what? She has remained the same.

I went to the main Post Office, chose the most beautiful and most expensive
card and wrote: "Dearest Viktoriya, my beloved girl, greetings, be well,
for this will make us all happy..."

 

We are getting increasingly heartless, as ruthlessly shown by our empty mailboxes on Christmas Eve 
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