Ready to Send

I know it's only September, and this may sound ridiculous, but I have finished making out my Christmas cards.  If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that each year I paint a picture which I use for my card.  This summer I took the painting to the printer, and before I left for Mexico in August, I already had my cards.  I send out the cards the day before Thanksgiving, and my friends have come to expect my card as the first that they receive each year.  I used to take the cards with me on my October trip to Mexico and make them out down there.  But the last few years I have completed them before my trip.  They are now ready to send when I return from Mexico a couple of days before Thanksgiving.

You also know that each year I create a calendar featuring my own photos.  I give those out as Christmas gifts.  That project was completed this summer, and several months ago I received the box shipped from Shutterfly.

Some of those calendars are shipped to my cousins in Europe.  I have to fill out a customs form for each of those.  A few weeks ago, when I was at the post office, I grabbed a stack of the forms.  

I filled them all out the other day, and today I am going to send them, avoiding the Christmas delivery rush.  The postage will cost as much as the calendars themselves.

The question is, will these traditions go by the wayside when I move to Mexico where the mail delivery is notoriously slow and unreliable?  I suppose I could get the Christmas cards for 2023 printed out, addressed and stamped before I make the move, and then have a friend send them out at the appropriate time.  But after that?   I create my calendars online, and I could have Shutterfly send them to the recipients in the U.S., but I doubt that they would ship them to Europe.  These are the sort of things that I will have to figure out when I am down there.