My latest piece is up at http://broadstreetreview.com/cross-cultural/on-the-sending-of-christmas-cards

It begins

I began sending Xmas cards when I was an attorney. Every current client received one. I hoped the gesture would prevent their yelling at me for at least a week. If I received a card from a client, I sent that client a card the following year, even if their case had ended. I sent cards to friends who lived outside the Bay Area too. I kept a record in my address book, allowing each to go three years without sending me a card before I dropped them. Some friends I kept on the list longer, like I was dropping messages in bottles into the ocean of time, hoping for an answer. Some friends returned cards forever and ever… then stopped. Some resumed, but others were left to my imagination to account for.