What started as a joke has turned into a holiday tradition for two siblings — one in Manitoba, the other in B.C. — that has now been going on for more than five decades.
For the past 53 years, Jan Hall, from Thompson, Man., and her brother Sid Fothergill, who lives in Armstrong, B.C., have been trading the same Christmas card back and forth.
The cycle of card recycling started in 1969, when Hall decided she would send out cards to all six of her siblings.
“Unbeknownst to me, Mom put the cards in with her Christmas decorations after Christmas,” said Hall.
The next year, Fothergill — a jokester, according to Hall — found the card.
“And he decided, well, it would be a good joke” to regift it, she said.
Hall responded in kind the year after that.
“I decided, ‘Well, if he can do it, I can do it,’ and that’s what the tradition became.”
Since then, the two have enjoyed getting the card in their respective years, sharing funny messages despite the now limited available space.
That included the year Hall says her brother signed the card from Sid — and Jasper.
“Jasper was a mule that he owned,” explained Hall. “My brother is a farrier, and he thought that that would be great.”
Though much of the tradition has been fun and games, there have been a few moments of anxiety in sending the card out, since there’s always the fear it may get lost on the way to its destination.
“Each year that we send it back and forth, we say thank you to Canada Post, because they haven’t lost it yet,” said Hall.
There was one moment of panic when Fothergill misplaced the card.
“It did come a little later than Christmas” that year, said Hall. “But he did find it.”
When she’s got the card, Hall keeps it on a china cabinet in the corner of her living room so that can she see it all year.
A world record?
While the card’s 53-year-long tradition of being delivered back and forth is noteworthy all on its own, Hall says it may be on the cusp of matching a world record.
“I looked it up and it would take five more years for it to be eligible for the Guinness Book of Records,” she said.
According to Guinness, the current record-holder for an exchange of the same greeting card was between Warren Nord of Mesa, Ariz., and Thor Andersen of Ashtabula, Ohio.
The two exchanged the same Christmas card every year from 1930 to 1987 — a total of 57 years, the Guinness World Record website says.
However, that record comes from the 1991 edition of Guinness book, the website notes, so it’s likely dated now — and an exchange with a Canadian connection appears to have already tied it.
A 2021 CBC story said two women in eastern British Columbia — Catherine Crewe and Nancy Nester — matched the 57-year Guinness record with a Christmas card they started exchanging when they were children.
Crewe and Nester told CBC last year they weren’t necessarily trying to set a new record, but just wanted to keep the tradition going.
Hall says she’s also looking forward to continuing her tradition with her brother — but just hopes there’s enough room on the card to keep writing “merry Christmas.”
“The writing is getting smaller and smaller,” she said.