Christmas Cards

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..."