When Canada Post announced this week that the cost of mail was going to jump in January, three Regina residents likely greeted the news with little more than a shrug and a smile.
Wally and Shirley Ball and Fred Blast, who is Shirley’s uncle, don’t bother to buy stamps for Christmas cards any more–at least the ones they share with one another.
Their cards are delivered by hand.
And they’re the same cards they’ve been exchanging since 1968.
The same.
Literally.
Canada Post says the cost for an individual stamp on a letter sent within Canada will cost $1.05, instead of a loonie. Other increases range between a dime to 35 cents depending on the size of the letter being sent within the country. Canada Post employee Shelly Paul delivers the mail in snowy Water Valley, Alta., Tuesday, Oct. 2, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh
Though those same cards do contain a new message each year.
The three met earlier this month in Regina to perform what it now a traditional ritual.
“The first few years, we mailed them,” Shirley told the CBC.
“And then we were afraid they might get lost in the mail, so we started personally delivering them.”
What exactly was the genesis of this idea?
“We were too cheap to buy stamps every year,” Fred says.
“I figured if I wouldn’t be his friend, he wouldn’t have any,” Wally says.
Shirley admits that nobody thought the tradition would last 50 years.
“That’s what makes it so unique,” she says.
“That’s the first thing you think of when Christmas is coming.
“You gotta remember the card.”
With files from CBC
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