Making sure everyone gets a Christmas card

Darlene Ransom works on a Christmas card at her home in Ottawa, Dec. 5, 2014

Want to send a Christmas card?

You can send an e-card with a few clicks of a mouse.

Or you can go to the store, buy Christmas cards, envelopes and stamps. You can take the time to write in each card, address each envelope, walk to the mailbox, and then hope and pray the cards make it to their destinations several days from now.

When you look at it that way, it’s no wonder regular mail is in dramatic decline.

But for Darlene Ransom, there’s no comparison. There’s nothing like the real thing.

“There’s nothing like opening your card,” She says. “There's that personal touch, that sense that that person has really put some thought and consideration into the hand-sent card."

Darlene Ransom wants to make sure on one has to go without that personal touch. She’s offering to buy, sign, stamp and mail Christmas cards from her family to total strangers. She placed an ad on Kijiji that reads “…sometimes we don’t always have someone to send us a Christmas card. I would like to be that person for you.”

All she needs is a name and an address. “I don’t necessarily even need last names,” she says. “I have first names for kids that I’m mailing out cards to.”

Ransom ran the same ad last year. She heard back from a few people, including low-income families who just wanted a little extra Christmas joy for themselves and their children.

It’s her way to pay it forward at Christmas time. It’s also her way to help preserve a fading tradition in an e-card, email, instant messaging world. “Who doesn’t like receiving mail, or a Christmas card or anything?”

Ransom’s only concern is of being swamped with frivolous requests. The wife and mother of three young children is counting on people to leave the offer to only those who can really use it. She’s even willing to accept donations to help her with expenses. Cards, envelopes, and especially stamps, aren’t cheap.

But she’ll do what she can if it means making someone’s Christmas a little more joyful. “I can just imagine someone’s face when they’re opening it!”