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How to Correspond Like a Victorian-Era Socialite

I made a presentation here the other day—by here I mean inside my Google Drive environment—and now my list of fonts is all junked up with unserious faces. So how’s your December going? Mine’s obviously terrible (so far).

This is the time of year when a young woman’s fancy turns to sending cards en masse. I say “young woman” although people of all genders can send holiday cards (and other types of cards). In my experience it’s just that it tends to be women and other femme-coded people to whom this type of social responsibility falls. One year I told my ex-spouse I was tired of doing all the holiday-related labor (all the cards, gifts, and planning for both my family and his) and that he would have to send cards and purchase gifts gifts for his family that year. They got no cards and a thoughtless assortment of last-minute gifts. Naturally, my mother-in-law was disappointed in me and not her son.

Maybe times have changed since then; I’m sure I don’t know. In my current household there is a more favorable split of domestic labor so I am back to enjoying sending cards.

Winter holiday cards are the ones I’m most likely to send without fail but I also like sending cards for Halloween and sometimes other holidays like Saint Patick’s Day and Valentine’s Day, plus I like sending birthday and anniversary cards when I have the life bandwidth to do it, and cards for people’s pet adoptiversaries, and then on top of that I have a couple friends with whom I communicate only through written missives, which is cool.

All of the above is to give you my credentials vis a vis sending mail so you will agree that I am qualified to write a Shelf Life on sending really cool mail. In addition to what I have already set forth, my friends tell me they really like getting the mail I send. I hope I have made my case. As to why Shelf Life would feature an article on sending cool mail, it falls under the broad heading of communicating with your fellow humans in writing. Plus they can’t all be thinkers. I don’t have enough brain cells.

I have a dire shortage of brain cells in the month of December so look forward to more non-thinkers ahead. For today, whether you haven’t send your holiday cards yet or you can use this info for, I don’t know, Presidents Day cards in January, I hope you’ll hold on to these tips and tricks for making your card the coolest one people will receive all year (unless they also get mail from me).

Support the USPS

If you have stamps with the flag on them, what are you even doing with your life? First, stamps are sold at the cost of their denomination; there’s no markup. So a cool stamp costs exactly the same as a boring stamp as long as they are the same denomination (forever stamps are $0.60 at the moment). I acknowledge there is a small handling fee for ordering stamps online that you would not have to pay if you got your stamps at the grocery store. This is a small fee and a small price to pay for having cool stamps. Right now there are a number of holiday-themed stamps as well as a bunch of cool non-holiday ones like the Title IX, the Women Cryptologists of WWII, Snoopy, Pete Seeger for some reason, and more.

While I’m on the subject of ordering things from USPS, you can also get USPS-themed xmas tree ornaments from them, those are fun. I have a cute mail truck one and a parcel one from my sister-in-law. USPS will also send you shipping supplies for free, by the way. Like Priority Mail boxes and mailers. Totally free. You just fill out a form on their site. You don’t have to give them a credit card number or anything.

Back on the subject of stamps, if you end up with too many cool stamps to choose from, there’s no rule that says you can only put one stamp on your card even if that’s enough postage to cover it. You can put more stamps. You just can’t put fewer stamps than required. A forever stamp will send mail up to 1 ounce in an envelope up to six-and-an-eighth inches high by eleven-and-a-half inches long, which covers most holiday cards even with a few enclosures in there. One ounce is about 4 sheets of computer paper.

If your envelope is a non-machinable shape or size (too big, too small, too lumpy, square instead of rectangular, et cetera), you use a non-machinable stamp instead of a forever stamp. There aren’t as many cool designs to choose from. You could also just put two forever stamps on it (although you’d be paying extra) or a forever stamp plus an additional postage ($0.24) but, again, those don’t have many designs to choose from.

Letter Art

USPS says you have to have the sender’s (return) address and recipient’s address both on the front of the envelope but you definitely do not. I put my return address on the back flap often to save room for art and stickers on the front.

No one ever believes me when I say this but I’m not the artistic type. I can follow a pattern or instructions, which is why I’m good at sewing and stuff, but I’m not very good at imagining something and then executing it. I do like to address card envelopes in a fun way, at least when I am sending out one-offs (when I get to sending 100+ winter holiday cards that’s a bit much). I like to type my recipient’s name into Canva or any easy-to-use graphics software and find a cool-looking font for it and then just copy that onto the front of the envelope with a marker or pen. I guess I could also just print it onto the envelope but I think my amateur-hour hand lettering makes it more fun.

Here’s an example of one I sent to a friend named Lynn.

My return address label is a self-inking stamp, which I think look nicer than putting a sticky label, especially if the sticky label is one you got for free from whatever charity you donated to 15 years ago and now won’t leave you alone and now one you picked out because you liked it. I have a handful of self-inking address stamps, some with just my name and some with my name and my partner’s name. You can get a stamp like this from all the same places that sell custom cards and stationery (Vistaprint, Zazzle, Shutterfly) and you can also get them at Amazon for a low price and with free shipping usually.

My good friend’s dad was a mail carrier back in the day and from him I learned that you should always make sure city, state, zip are on the same line if possible and not carry the zip code down to another line. I also understand that mail can get to its intended recipient with a surprisingly small amount of information. Not that I advise skipping parts of the address when you write it but this is just to say that you can be pretty fancy and USPS will still get your card there.

Decorate, Decorate, Decorate

USPS also does not have any rules, as far as I know, about how you can decorate the outside of the envelope. As long as the recipient’s address and the stamp are in the officially sanctioned places, you don’t have to be persnickety about the rest. You can draw pictures, stick stickers, use washi tape, and so on to customize your envelope—especially the back. For example, here’s a card I sent on the occasion of a favorite cat’s adoption anniversary, which includes washi tape and stickers:

And here is a Halloween card with a drawing, some washi tape, and a sticker:

Again, not being particularly artistic, I googled something like “simple ghost doodle” and just copied what I found because otherwise I would never have known how to draw a ghost. Anyone could make this envelope.

I also make envelope seals on my printer at home rather than buying them because it’s much, much cheaper (if you have a printer). Envelope seals aren’t necessary but they contribute to making everything more fun.

Speaking of DIY, you can also make completely custom cards by hand or with a computer and printer, but you don’t need me to tell you that. Here’s a pic of a custom card I made for a trans homie with an intolerant family:

Compose Then Enclose  

Even with washi tape and a bunch of stickers on your envelope, and the card inside, it probably doesn’t weigh a whole ounce. You probably have some mileage left on your $0.60 forever stamp. Why not put in some fun enclosures?

You can put anything in there as long as it’s lightweight, reasonably flat, and fits the dimensions of the card. Some things I’ve sent people in their cards include:

• Fortune telling fishes

• Bob Ross cards with inspirational quotes

• Bookmarks (including Shelf Life bookmarks)

• Stickers (including Shelf Life stickers)

• Teabags

• Facial sheet masks

• Temporary tattoos

• Papercraft

• Poorly executed drawings I’ve made

• Small calendars; sometimes I draw a moon phase calendar for witchy friends

• A poetry chapbook one time (poetry not mine!)

Listen whose day wouldn’t be made getting a fun, decorated envelope in the mail and then when they open it something cool falls out? Nobody’s, that’s whose.

Anyway, ’tis the season and I encourage you to pep up your holiday cards if you’re already sending them or send some fun cards if you weren’t planning to, even if you just fold a piece of paper in half an color it with a marker and scrawl an obscene holiday message on it. Everybody could use more mail that isn’t bills and junk.

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