|
Post by Dave Homewood on Dec 23, 2014 17:06:18 GMT 12
As Christmas Eve is just a few hours away, I just wanted to wish all my friends here a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I hope you all have a fun, relaxing and safe holiday period. If you go flying, or to an airport or an aviation museum, take your cameras and show us what you got up to here later. I'm not doing much this year, I can't afford to. So I'll be having a quiet one at home and trying to not get sunburnt in the garden. If you get bored over the holidays you can always have a listen to some Wings Over New Zealand Show episodes, or some Courage And Valour shows. Take care and have a great holiday break! Cheers Dave
|
|
|
Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Dec 23, 2014 17:40:11 GMT 12
The strange, wonderful, dying art of the Christmas cardBy Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist | 1:54PM PST - Monday, December 22, 2014WE had this bowl, growing up, an enormous, sterling silver thing the size of a small cauldron — probably a wedding gift to my parents from the late '50s — into which my mother would collect our family’s annual hoard of Christmas cards, upwards of 100 or more during the “peak” years, a hugely impressive, Rolodex-like stockpile of friendship, business pals and family love, all of it reflecting just how gregarious (and likable) my parents have been throughout their entire, astonishing six-decade marriage, and how delightful, and curious, and hey-let’s-stay-in-touch.
And every year, my mother would go through these cards — nearly all of them done up in the classic, awkwardly posed, fabulously dorky, sweater-and-a-grin white-people style — one by one, reading the updates and the personal anecdotes, and she’d coo and laugh and say oh my goodness look at the Johnson’s kids, and wow Tom sure has put on some weight, and oh no Judith’s mother passed away and the Benison’s daughter got into dental school isn’t that nice she was such a troubled and difficult child.White people. What can you do?On our mother’s urging, my sisters and I would flip through these (largely foreign) names and faces, which was at once charming and sort of exhausting because, well, who are all these strange people, and why are they all wearing ill-fitting sweaters, and what’s the deal with their 17 grandkids and their knee surgery and their 1983 trip to Rome?
It was, looking back, sort of amazing, this happy, once-a-year burst of holiday-themed social reconnection so beloved by generations of yore, a pre-Internet social network of sorts, Facebook before Facebook, the Christmas card being one of the few methods available to stay in touch with distant friends and stay friendly with business associates, aside from the the (too expensive) long-distance phone call and who wants to phone people you don’t really know much anymore, and have no way of finding their phone number anyway, but about whom you’re still curious and warmly nostalgic?
A card. A card, with a nice family snapshot, maybe a short personal note. The perfect thing.
Times have changed, wildly and fast and obviously. Then again, maybe not so much.
Of course lots of people still send out real cards, pose the family either awkwardly or — in the case of a few of my more heroic friends — tremendously cleverly and sweet, write personal notes, do the whole elaborate holiday card thing. And most of these adults are, of course, over 40, meaning they appreciate and value the retro-charm of the whole thing, when getting a piece of physical mail, hand-addressed and personalized, carried a particular, cherished charge.Kardashian card, circa 1990-something. Because you sort of have to?And now? Will “traditional” holiday cards possibly survive the downfall of the post office? Can it find a place in the age of short-attention-span social media and online photo albums, when anyone can take a family snapshot (or 100), zap it with a pre-set filter and text it to anyone else, anywhere in the world, in about four seconds flat? Doubtful. Maybe.
One easy option is to do something more along the lines of what my girl and I did this year: whip up a holiday card using one of iPhoto’s templates (or Walgreens, or Shutterfly, or whomever), have a batch printed and sent to us in two days flat, hand address them all and send them out with a flourish and an honest, deeply felt personal note.
Which is the key to the whole thing, isn’t it? The personal note. The intimate and thoughtful touch. Therein the magic. The real holiday juice. This is why my girl wanted to do in the first place: not for the photo (which they can see anywhere, including FB and my own site), but because she really wanted our friends to know how much they meant to her, and to us.Nothing says “happy holidays” like a WTF cat portrait.This is the divine gist, no? Perhaps even more important, more valuable than ever? No matter how fast, easy, sophisticated or stylish all those apps, online photo templates and sharing sites become, nothing will ever match the true personal touch, the hand-written note, the obvious time and energy it takes to create it all, from our family to yours.
Could that be the savior? The thing that never goes out of style? Holiday cards, real and printed and hand-addressed, far from vanishing into the ravenous, hyper-speed maw of modern tech, will perhaps become even more precious, valued, something to be sent only to cherished friends and loved ones because, well, everyone else can just check out your Facebook profile.
One adorable, modern twist: Some of our friends were sufficiently delighted by our card that they did the only natural thing: They took a selfie, of course, smiling and holding up our card, and texted that photo back to us, expressing their gratitude and delight.
Behold! We have hereby invented a new and strangely wonderful holiday meta-loop, a happy collision of low and high tech that, in our case anyway, left everyone smiling. Mission accomplished.• Email: Mark Morford• Mark Morford on Twitter and Facebook.blog.sfgate.com/morford/2014/12/22/the-dying-art-of-the-christmas-card
|
|
|
Post by baz62 on Dec 23, 2014 18:05:15 GMT 12
Yes same to you Dave. I'm on holiday as from this afternoon and Teresa and I wish you and all the forum members a Merry (and safe!) Christmas and hope Santa brings you something nice. And yes Dave I'll be catching up on some of those episodes from your show as well as some work on the Auster. we can't afford to do much either but there is plenty to do in the hangar and round the house! Was talking to Don on Saturday and we will try and orgnaise a mini-meet at Wigram either in the new year or between Christmas and New Year depending on where everyone is re going away or staying in Christchurch.
|
|
|
Post by jonesy on Dec 23, 2014 18:21:53 GMT 12
You too Dave, and other forum lurkers...I'm off to work tomorrow for a week and fly home for a quiet New Years' Eve. And it gonna be hot I hear...42 there today! The wife and kids have flown back to Tauranga for Xmas with her family so its been a quiet house here...
|
|
|
Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Dec 23, 2014 18:22:34 GMT 12
I'm catching up with my sister tomorrow for an early Christmas dinner as it is the only day this week where we both have the day off at the same time. She returns to work (at Police comms) on Christmas Day after a four-day break, and I have a couple of rostered days off tomorrow and Thursday, returning to work on Friday.
So we decided to bump things forward a day to tomorrow.
On Christmas Day itself, I am planning a very quiet one. My neighbours are putting on a barbecue and have invited me over, but after a big Christmas dinner tomorrow, I'm definitely staying away from lots of food the day after. I'm intending to catch up on a few episodes of the Wings Over New Zealand Show which I have downloaded and saved, but never got around to listening to.
From Boxing Day, I work another cycle of seven shifts until New Year's Day, then have a rostered five-day long weekend off from 2nd January to 6th January inclusive, when I'll be heading up to Gisborne for a wedding. Then it's back to the grindstone again.
However, I'm on early shift this coming weekend (finishing not long after midday), so if the weather is fine, I'll be heading to Hood Aerodrome for the TVAL flying display after work.
Have a great Christmas everybody....may Santa bring you what you desire. Don't get too pissed, and enjoy the festive season. No doubt I'll catch up with a few of you at Classic Fighters next Easter.
|
|
|
Post by TS on Dec 23, 2014 21:35:40 GMT 12
Merry Christmas one and All.. Be safe, be careful, But above all have FUN..
|
|
|
Post by suthg on Dec 24, 2014 5:44:15 GMT 12
Yes Merry Christmas one and all - I can't go far from home this year, I drew the short straw of Engineer in the Management team for Kinleith starting this evening (Wednesday) 24/7 through to next Wednesday. A family lunch in Hamilton tomorrow and then home again. I hope and pray everyone stays safe when travelling and take care with the sun and not too much of any one thing Enjoy your families, use Skype or something and stay in touch - show you care!
|
|
|
Post by Mustang51 on Dec 24, 2014 7:46:57 GMT 12
Just want to pass on my best wishes for a Merry Christmas and a very healthy, happy and prosperous New Year for 2015 to everyone on the eastern side of the Ditch from me here in the West Island. I have really enjoyed the Forum this year and know it is going to go from strength to strength next year. Hopefully I'll be there a number of times in 2015 so see you at Wairarapa in January to start with !
|
|
|
Post by Dave Homewood on Dec 24, 2014 8:49:56 GMT 12
Merry Christmas Pete! I am looking forward to seeing you at Masterton.
|
|
|
Post by pampa14 on Dec 24, 2014 19:58:53 GMT 12
I wish all forum friends a Happy and Blessed Christmas and the 365 days of the next year may be accompanied by a lot of Peace, Success, Happiness. Att. Marcelo Lobo da Silva (Editor’s Blog). aviacaoemfloripa.blogspot.com.br/
|
|
|
Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Dec 25, 2014 8:59:32 GMT 12
|
|
|
Post by alanw on Dec 25, 2014 20:31:46 GMT 12
Hi Dave and to my fellow forumites, Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas. Weather here in Auckland was not bad today, and wasn't a bad day overall . Hope you all have had a great day. Best regards Alan
|
|
|
Post by 11SQNLDR on Dec 26, 2014 6:05:41 GMT 12
Happy Boxing Day one and all! The family and I flew out of Perth on NZF, the newst Dreamliner on the evening of the 23rd and eventually touched down in Napier around 10am on Christmas Eve. It's great to be back in the Bay Yesterday was a traditional day with the elderly folks which of course involved a large amount of guzzling and grazing.... Baz - keen to have a beer at Wigram if the date fits in, we get there on the evening of the 31st and fly out to Melbourne on the afternoon of the 3rd so just a short trip.
|
|
|
Post by Darren Masters on Dec 26, 2014 13:01:28 GMT 12
Merry Christmas fellow forum friends. Hope you all had a good one Our early present was our daughter Leilani born 27th Nov
|
|