Postcards to Connect Generations… and as Conversation Starters

My father began a tradition recently- he sends the kids postcards. This may not seem like a big deal, but it has turned into something pretty neat. Panorama loves getting mail, and she loves hearing from family members that she doesn’t see very often.

Sometimes the postcards are from vacations or exotic locations, but even the seemingly mundane “Greetings from Scranton” type cards that are bought from gas stations for a quarter are extremely popular. He tends to buy three or four cards at a time, then instead of running around and finding a stamp, he’ll just send one or so a week once he gets home.

When one of these notes arrives in the mail, it gives us a chance to sit down on the couch before dinner and talk. We read the message, look at the picture and pull out the map, or open up Google Earth. As they get older, I’d like the kids to have a wall map that we can mark with dots or pins for places we’ve been, and cards we’ve received. (The subject of kids and geography is one I am going to spend more time on later, especially after reading this yesterday.)

Now, I need to laminate them with contact paper (so that both sides are visible) and bind them together into a simple book. I’d really like it if we could continue to flip through them and learn new things, as well as keeping a bit of a memory book of notes from people we love. How many examples of your grandparent’s handwriting do you have?

Other relatives have begun sending postcards, too. In addition to postcards that they buy, they’ve made some with their own photographs using online tools from the post office.