Every Christmas, I look forward to the Christmas cards that flood our otherwise junk mail and bill filled mailbox. The smiling faces and life updates from families that have impacted our lives some since childhood and otherwise more recently just bring me an immense amount of joy. I started years back, though, my very favorite tradition of all around the New Year.

As I pack up Christmas, I take the Christmas cards off of our walls and put them in a stack. Then one quiet morning, I take my stack of cards with a cup of coffee and go through and hold each one in my hands again. I read the card. Look at the smiling faces. And I pray for each family one by one.

Usually my prayer consists of thanking God for bringing them into our lives and the way they have enriched and impacted our lives. I pray for their upcoming year that it might be filled with joy, good health, and wonder. I pray for the struggles they have shared with us and those that they have carried silently by themselves. And I end the prayer asking that God help us with helping to remind them how important they are in this world and our lives. That they might know they are loved today and evermore.

It usually takes me a couple of mornings to get through all of the cards. And I’ll admit, as I pour myself a coffee to start on this year’s stack, I’m a little farther behind this year than I was in year’s past. But it’s a wonderful habit to add to your new year. And I find that it just lifts my soul in ways that new year’s resolutions, word of the year, and intentions ever do.