is it too late to send out christmas cards for the 2017 christmas season?

i'm asking for a friend.

you see, my friend got so excited about christmas cards this past year. so excited.

she even booked her family photo session early!

i know, right?

so she would have time to discover which poses were her favorites and which ones would fit into the layout of the card she had painstakingly spent hours looking for.

like, she went to three or four or a hundred "card" websites to find the perfect card, colors, layout, sentiment, and price.

and she had all this done waaaaaaaay before thanksgiving.

because the plan was to have the envelopes stuffed and stamped and in the mail the monday after thanksgiving.

because, well, she cheated a little and had the card company do the addressing for her.

but she ran into a snag.

even though she paid the little extra to get them rushed and shipped faster than fast {because she couldn't wait to see the creation for real life, in our own little hands} the cards were late.

actually, the cards were lost.

the cards showed up three days later than they were supposed to.

and the order was wrong.

the order for 200 cards and pre-printed envelopes...was wrong. w r o n g .

they were not pre-addressed. 

the return address was not even hers!

seriously!

you can't make this shit up!

thank gawd, the cards were correct!

but how funny would it have been if she had received the smith family?

so she contacted the butterfly {sounds like} company that printed the order and let them know that the cards were correct but the envelopes weren't. she was told they would have to re-print the entire order!

what a freaking waste! she did not need 500 freaking christmas cards. who knows that many people to even send the cards to? and if you did, could you even afford the postage to send those cards and still buy christmas presents for your loved ones?

so butterfly said they would put a rush on it but it would be about a week before they could have them to her.

which is weird because she got the initial wrong order within 3 days of her order...so weird to me that fixing and error would take so much longer!

anyways...a week goes by and the cards still aren't arriving and she was told they would have to cancel the order and re-issue it again. because no one knew where the cards were!

what the actual heck is going on here?

so the very next day, the cards mysteriously arrive on her doorstep.

and the re-issued order has never been seen.

i don't know for sure, but i think that it was almost a two week time period here by the time the correct order showed up.

and by that time, my friend was so over these cards that she stuck in the closet in the basement and spaced them off.

i don't blame her, really.

she had a lot going on the second half of december.

a l o t .

so i kinda get where she's coming from.

but now we are almost to valentine's day. she's had someone remind her a few times that her cards haven't gone out yet. {you know who you are ;) }

and she's feeling a little guilty that she spent the money and time and energy on these cards and they are still sitting in a dark closet.

it's been years since she has missed sending christmas cards.

but are people going to think it's senile?

should she put a sticker on the envelope that says "better late than never"?

or she can get them all ready this coming weekend, plop them in the mail monday with a sticker that just says "happy valentine's day"?

eeeewwww...if she does that, will people be confused when they open the envelope and find  "merry christmas and happy new year" when we are already into the second month of the new year?

will her friends want her admitted for psychiatric observation because she has no concept of the time of year?

orrrr...does she hold onto them for christmas 2018?

oh wait...pretty sure these are dated 2017 so that won't work.

i guess the cards could be shredded and used to line the guinea pig cage.

like i said.

i'm asking for a friend.

please be kind in your comments.

she hasn't had her morning chocolate yet ;)

i am grateful:

• for commiserating friends
• for a very supportive husband
• for a kind and caring daughter
• for a mom that is always willing to listen
• for the antics of the minions

just breathing isn't living!

sincerely,