74-year-old Christmas card still makes the family rounds

SEQUIM – These guys know how to reuse and recycle. Most important, they can track down the same old holiday card every year.

Jim Pickett of Sequim and his cousin, Bill Reeves of Florida, have managed to preserve an elderly, earthy Christmas card for decades.

Their fathers, Earl Pickett and David Reeves, launched the missive in 1932.

Reeves was in Philadelphia serving in the U.S. Marine Corps, it was the height of the Depression, and he chose a postcard he figured would give his cousin in Wharton, Texas, a laugh.

It shows Santa seated on an outdoor toilet and reads, “Same old crap, merry Christmas.”

“A Marine would tend to send that,” said Jim Pickett, 68, who, like clockwork, found the card in his mailbox in early December.

When the Pickett-Reeves ritual began, “it was the Depression, and they were cheap. So they just sent the same card,” he added.

Pickett’s father and uncle agreed, year after year, that there was no sense in tossing out the perfectly good Christmas greeting, previous years’ notes and all.

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