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My personal Christmas card Apocalypse is now done. I mailed them today in a priority box. They should arrive on Friday.

My first mistake was buying personalized cards that I thought were actual cards. They were one sided, with envelopes. This presented me with some issues wrapping my head around the fact they were not "cards" in my eyes.

I can say every possible mistake was made doing this. The saga began with a simple idea....and ended up being the single biggest dysfunctional thing I've probably ever mailed in my life.

I put something in the cards, went to mail them and asked a simple question. She made me show her the cards. She then announced that they were too thick to be considered "machinable". She then informed me to put an additional stamp on them and bring them back. Ok 48 more stamps...I had those, no big deal.

I sulked home, and put one more forever stamp on them all, and went back, package in hand to mail them. The woman then spoke to her co-worker who asked me to open the box so she could see them. After examining them she declared they might be considered too fat and would all need to be labeled "non machinable". I had to take them home again, and she warned me they might get returned as "parcels" due to the thickness of the envelopes. The postage Grinch was working in full force that day.

I crawled home once again, and decided to slit the bottoms of the envelopes and let some of the contents out of each one. I then had to Frankenstein the enveloped back together. They have tape on every possible side now. I'm positive they are NOW thin enough to mail without writing Hand machine on each one. I can't do much about the postage, it's now overkill. I can't change envelopes to ones that don't look like they were compacted, because the postage is already on them.

I DIDN'T include one for myself. When I put them in the box, sealed it and mailed them today, I went home to find my address labels sitting on the table. They will come to you without my return address on them, butchered and possibly with a few stray dog hairs in the tape.

I was done...I learned my lesson. Next year I will be a veteran, and I won't make any of these mistakes.

After Christmas is over I will send a photo of what I put in them thinking it would be funny.

Oh Muggle - you win the prize for...well...

I'm sure it was frustrating as all get out, but I have to admit I was giggling the whole time I read your comedy of errors. Thanks for the good laugh tonight - I was needing one. Poor Muggle.

And I have a really inappropriate guess as to what you might have put in the envelope, but it certainly wasn't *that*, so I'll wait for the big reveal. See, just when think this whole exchange is over, we'll have your photo of the ed-i-vence to look forward to!

Muggle, this is making me think that my cards (which also have something extra in them) may not be "machinable." Nothing was stated about machinability when I looked up postage rates. As it was, TimeSpiral assured me that I was grossly overthinking the postal rules, and he's involved in a business that does a fair amount of shipping, so I deferred to his judgment. Now I'm wondering if your Frankensteined, dog furred cards will have the edge on ours, because at least they were reviewed by postal employees and are likely to be delivered. Ours just went into a box and got dropped off without comment. No return address labels, either.

I guess if they end up in the North Pole Dead Letter Office, I'll have to post pictures of what they looked like. Maybe I can use a glitter filter...

Muggle,

And here I thought my big mistake was putting the postage on after adding the glitter. You have me beat. Enjoy some tequila yourself and I too look forward to the pictures of the extra something.

I am ever the procrastinator. Mine should be there by Friday.

They will come to you without my return address on them, butchered and possibly with a few stray dog hairs in the tape.

I look forward to that, Muggle. Stray dog hairs beats glitter in my book any day!

Muggle - I can kinda relate except...

I had a most awesome postal worker who helped me weigh each one (48) - add more postage to all of them .... and taped the hell out of the box. That most amazing woman stayed ten extra minutes into her lunch hour (and a half) to help me...

I did hear the word “parcel” as she felt up my cards .... lol...

Muggle - Your tale of Christmas card woe had me cracking up!

Next year - I’ll do much better after I see what all this chatter is about!

Ps... if anyone sees (sp) on their card - I did understand that I spelled the word wrong but a scribble or whiteout mark was, somehow, less acceptable to me than correcting my own work (not a teacher)!

Expect delivery Friday or Saturday

Yayyyy! USPS says my cards have arrived!

Muggle, you really went over and above with this. Your ordeal makes me wonder if mine will be delivered as-is or be rejected. It seems the PO must have new regs on this because it didn't matter in previous years how thick they were because I got cards from all participants and some were VERY thick and heavy. I guess we will see soon enough.

Oh jeeze I hope mine will be OK... I spent all farking day on them today and am off to PO tomorrow to mail. I am gonna be very sad if they don't make it... Yeah, I am telling myself that I will NOT procrastinate next year. But I probably will cus that's just how I roll.

New development at 4-something am: package will be delivered by 8 pm today...!!! What the...???? Yesterday it was confirmed delivered? Well, as long as it makes the deadline, I guess. But the way this is going, who knows!?

Then there's the possibility that my cards have any of Muggles' issues. Ugh.

Mailed all of my cards out just now!! 🤗 They said they should be there Sunday by 3pm!

Merry Christmas, everyone! 🎄

Try not to panic y’all! Things usually work out one way or another.

Ok, round two of USPS text that it was delivered. We'll see......

USPS claims mine will arrive on Saturday. I did not have anyone check mine, but I may have had to shake a few to attempt to even them out... We'll see if they make it through!

The North Pole was inundated with packages today!

Priority Mail says.....................Saturday 11/30.

BUT last year, it took 4 days!!! So glad I pay extra for 2 day delivery

Here's hoping they make it by Sunday!

I swear every year I am going to mail early - I lie to myself EVERY YEAR!!! very bad habit I picked up somewhere....................

Mailed my cards 2 weeks ago. Didn’t wait till the last minute:)

Afraid I would if I didn’t do it right away

Looking forward to the exchange

Mailed mine yesterday, priority, supposed to be there Saturday.....suspicious trail of glitter found on the table I used to put my stamps on. How odd....

My tracking info says delivered 11/27 at 1:12 pm! WooHoo! (left on doorstep)

Says delivered on the 29th... :-)

Eek, I mailed my cards priority mail on Nov. 23 and they’ve been listed as “out for delivery” or “awaiting delivery scan” since Nov. 25. I really hope they’ve been delivered and just not scanned.