Christmas mail

     I know that it has been a while since I have updated. It has been busy with concert season and I have a broken wisdom tooth that has kept me in lots of pain. I wanted to share some of my beautiful Christmas mail with you. Most of these I have received from a Christmas card exchange through Postcrossing. I love seeing the different images from Christmas across the world. I'm still waiting for quite a few so I will post them when they come.

 From Nicole in Germany

 From Marina in Ukraine. How beautiful!!!!!

 And the stamps! Speaking of Ukraine- check out the ornament I just received from one of my Ukrainian students.

 From Nana, the woman who sparked my postal obsession :)

 From pumpkin1990 in China

 From my dentist :) (This is the most beautiful card!!! It would make any person who loves stationary/letter writing drool.)

 From some of our friends in town.

 From Alevtina in Russia

 From Matt's aunt and uncle

 From my sister

 From my friend Cheryl from church

 From Anna in Russia

 From my penpal Donna in Canada.

 From a friend of David's.

 From MitchS in the Philippines. It had some cute Christmas stamps too.

     This beautiful card is from a former student's family.

From Germany from desi-eich

From Germany (I believe from Samantha 21. Please correct me if I am wrong)

Ornaments and Nenga Hagaki

Mail!

Incoming...
     I got some great mail today. (I know most "normal" people are not this excited about mail but most snail-mailers are.) I love when I get mail that I learn something from so I'll start with my "Nenga postcard" from Kenshu, a Chinese student studying in Japan.
     Since I don't speak Japanese, this postcard looked a little plain and I had no idea what it was until I researched. In Japan, apparently it is a tradition to send New Year's postcards to send greetings and wishes for the new year. I looked at a few pages to tell me about these cards. Check them out. Interesting.
Japanese Culture and Daily Life- information about the cards, history of the cards, messages, samples,     information about the new year's lottery.
Nengajo- Japanese New Year's Cards- general information and nengajo ettiquette
Yen for Living- Explains prizes associated with new year's cards.

    Part of the reason I am so interested in penpalling and postcrossing is that I am able to learn about different people, traditions, cultures, etc. I have a penpal in Japan, Akiko, who has taught me a lot about Japan.She has also sent me some gorgeous gifts from Japan and some tasty Japanese snacks and tea. It has been a while since I've mailed her so maybe I will send her a late New Year card, which apparently would be known as a winter greeting if it is sent after 1/7.

     This is my card:

    The second piece of "good mail" came from a Postcrosser from Austria, ChristinaB. A while back I signed up for a Christmas Ornament Tag. (Wrote about tags in yesterday's post )  I sent an ornament to the Ukraine and to China. I received my first ornament(s) today from Austria and am still waiting for my ornament from China.
     Here are the ornaments and card I received. I love the reindeer one especially!

  I also received a nice thank you card with pretty gold foil:

Outgoing...
US-2581850 to Russia

US-2581853 to Germany

US-2581854 to Germany

US-2583571 to Russia

366 Project:

 Sent: 11
Received: 6