Once upon a time I had a friend who, like me, have recently reentered the workforce due to a traumatic situation. In my case my husband of 10 years had abandoned me with three small children; in her case her husband – a postal letter carrier – had gotten a bad case of Lyme disease, and was on disability until he got better. To say that we were both ridiculously busy trying to keep house and raise children, on top of being breadwinners, was the understatement of a lifetime. And that’s how our little meme started.

Frankly, one particularly busy year I was thrilled to get the Christmas cards mailed out at all, and I think she got hers in February, just before Valentine’s Day. She sent me a Christmas card back; it arrived somewhere around Easter! And from that point on we decided to do this intentionally, and sent each other greeting cards that were totally inappropriate for the current season.

Halloween cards at Easter time, St. Patrick’s Day cards in August. Easter cards at Christmas were followed by Valentine’s Day cards that arrived during back-to-school sales. Birthday cards sent six months after the event (or were they early, before the next one?) It became a bit of a competition… just how bad could we get? And whenever we received one of those absolutely ridiculously out of place greeting cards at completely the wrong time of year, it brought a smile to both of our faces.

So, yes, you can be completely unseasonable and still be quite fashionable as long as you’re trying for the laugh. Trust me, this really works, and if you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed it might be fun to set one of these up with one of your friends…

After all, it’s almost Easter. I’m sure you have some Christmas cards that you never sent left over that you can put to good use.