Daisy and Donald Duck!

Postcard from Nammak from the Netherlands
Description: Happy Holidays

The price of a letter

Canada Post announced on last week that in March letter rates will be going up to 85¢/$1 for a domestic letter (I haven’t been able to figure out if the US and international rates get the extra hike too or just the expected hike in January). There’s a whole bunch of rhetoric about it flying around the interwebs right now with arguments for and against the rate hike (and a phasing out of mail carriers and some job losses). I haven’t linked because there is so much of it and so much of it is changing. The most confusing part is the two rates for a domestic letter – it all depends on whether you purchase a single stamp or a booklet of stamps. Booklets have a less expensive per stamp cost. But what is the value of a “P” stamp?

We send a lot of mail at our house. We like mail. We belong to Postcrossing and J and I both write letters to penpals and friends. I know we’re rare, but our personal mail far exceeds our bills. Lots of postcrossers like stamps as well as postcards…so sometimes we put multiple stamps on our cards…I will likely stop using perpetual stamps for those and stick to numbered stamps because who knows what that “P” stamps is really worth.

But what really is the price of a letter? I’ve seen so many people say this is the way Canada Post should be going because we can send email and attach pictures and send text messages. Who cares about mail?

I care…I’ll continue to shell out for the more expensive stamps because I like to open that envelope and savour that letter. I like seeing the wear and tear from the letter’s journey. You can sometimes see the way a letter writer’s emotions change through a letter in the way that their handwriting shifts. Letters are better for sharing secrets. The mail I receive is worth more to me than the cost of the stamp and the postcard or paper…I love getting letters…don’t get me wrong, email is awesome too and I won’t stop using it, but it is so nice to get a letter from an old friend (or a new one) and take a few minutes to sit down and read (and reread) their words…the price of a letter might be $1, but its value is certainly greater.

I was also sad to hear they are phasing out postal carriers…I remember one mailman we had when I was a kid…I’d run out to meet him and he’d often have a mint for me. Remove the mail carriers and that personal connection is gone…the postal system isn’t really dead…I think ours just needs to be revamped…when I lived in the UK, I couldn’t believe the mail people sent and received and the efficiency of Royal Mail…next day delivery? Little notes just to say hi? Their postal system seems to still be working better than ours…

Should Canada Post be cost effective? Definitely. Should it be costing us money as taxpayers? Probably not. Is a revamp a good idea? Certainly…but making the price of stamps prohibitive isn’t really going to solve the problem…

Anyway…I rambled. A lot. If you want to do something cool and maybe help Canada Post stay relevant, check out Postcrossing. We love it!

Blue trees (maybe it’s a spruce?)

Postcard from ms1506 from Canada

Red-headed girl and sailboat boy, Church of Saints Simon and Helena and Christmas sheep

Postcard from VencSv from Russia
Description: (translated by VencSv) I wish you happiness! The long-awaited happiness as gifts in childhood and deafening happiness as a drumbeat!

Postcard from EliseevaAnna from Belarus
Description: The Church of Saints Simon and Helena in Minsk. There is a very long description on the back, but it’s not in English. According to Wikipedia, the church has had an interesting history and was not once, but twice, a movie theatre. Today it has been renovated and is once again used as a Catholic Church.

Postcard from Akira_Butterfly from Germany

The Peak of Christmas

9.2 Go on an 10 "adventures"

On Saturday, we packed up the car, picked up J’s best bud from daycare, R, and made our way to Grouse Mountain (because the advent calendar said so…) We took the gondola up to the absolutely freezing Christmas fun. We had been four years ago, but of course J couldn’t remember it at all.

The girls had a blast rolling down this hill covered in about six inches of hard packed snow. There were reindeer just up the hill from here, but they were not interested in the least…we found out later from Santa himself that Rudolph was our practising and he was the only reindeer they were interested in anyway.

We ate diner at the restaurant with an amazing view of the lower mainland (yes, it was a very early dinner since it’s dark by about 4 these days!)

R was super excited to have her picture taken as a snowman, but J wasn’t sure…

J took this picture of C (who I was wearing) and she looks even less impressed than J!

The highlight of the night for the big girls was skating. They were out there for over an hour and it was COLD…

C doesn’t look impressed here…likely because we have her stuffed into her most hated snow suit and she has a hat on..

Much happier with Daddy! Or maybe she realized the hat was keeping her warm ;)

Merry Christmas!

Hurricane cat, reading animals and Malaysian scenery

Postcard from MorenaTan from Russia.
Description: According to MorenaTan, this card was mailed the day of a hurricane in her city…it made it!

Postcard from Anutka123 from Russia
Description: Author: Irina and Alexander Chukavini, “Fairytales”

Postcard from feltroneu from Malaysia
Description: (clockwise from upper left)
1. Stunning silhouette at Pantai Kok
2. Beach at Detai Bay
3. Al-Hana mosque
4. Traditional village house

Castle Tower and hugging friends

Postcard from ElizabethMoiseenok from Belarus.
Description: Niasvizh Farny. Corpus Christi Church. 1593.  Niasvizh Casle tower. XVI century.

Postcard from chrissel from Germany

The Queen’s Birthday, a boy and a bird and a cat with a flower

Postcard from zeta_ori from Ukraine
Description: zeta_ori tells me this card is for the Australian Queen’s birthday. The stamps are covering the description, but it seems to say something about the Queen of England being the sovereign of Australia. I don’t know.

Postcard from HannesHabermann from Germany

Postcard from linano from Lithuania

Slovenian Christmas, Belpost and Japanese road signs

Postcard from dejko from Slovenia

Postcard from SofiyaMinsk from Belarus

Postcard from lycaphe from Japan

Spanish Flowers

Postcard from bogdanovskaya from Spain

Une rue pittoresque and something special

Postcard from didieroux2 from France

Description: Vieille rue pittoresque et fleurie
Picturesque old street in bloom

Postcard from yingchieh from Taiwan

Description: Handmade. This is one of my favourite cards ever. yingchieh took the time to read my profile and made me my very own special card with J and C on it too! I felt pretty special when I opened the mailbox today!

Portuguese tram and Dutch butterflies

Postcard from andresalguiero from Portugal

Postcard from zappaatje from the Netherlands

Description: This card is also one of those cool 3D cards…I’m not sure if I can scan them better or not…they sure look blurry!