The Christmas Card

19TH December 2010:

“Mum!!! We got another Christmas card!!!”
I opened it, and looked inside to see who had sent this one. It was a pretty card, glittery, and a picture of Santa made out of triangles on the front. It was from Rose and Billie. I had no idea who Rose and Billie were, maybe they were Mum’s co-workers, or something. All I knew was that my name was Rose as well. And then I read the whole card, and got a shock. It read:

Dear Mum,
Happy Christmas
Love Rose and Billie
PS, can’t wait to see you on the 23RD

I picked up the envelope. It was definitely addressed to us. The postman hadn’t got the wrong house. I turned the envelope over. The sender’s address was on the back. It was sent by a Miss R Pipler.
‘What is going on?’ I thought to myself.
“Well, who’s it from?” Mum asked, coming into the kitchen. I showed her the card. She looked at me. “Is this anything to do with you, Rose?”
“No. I swear. I thought maybe they were workmates of yours. And they were coming for a party on the 23RD.”
“No. No, no-one’s coming over on the 23RD, not that I know of.”
I showed her the envelope. “Read the back,” I told her.
Mum flipped the envelope, and read the back. Her face went pale.
“The name at the back is the same as ours,” I said. “Only from a different address.”
“Yes. Yes, I see that,” Mum said.
“So, do you know what it may be then?”
“It’s a prank,” Mum answered. “That’s all it can be. A vicious prank. Someone obviously doesn’t like us, and wants to annoy us.”
Mum ripped the card up, and threw it in the bin.

19TH December 2033:

It was twenty-three years later. Twenty-three years since that weird Christmas card, Mum and I had received from someone who supposedly had the same, or similar, name as me. I am now forty-five, and I had moved out to my own place with my ten-tear-old daughter, Billie.
After Mum had ripped that card up, we never spoke of it. Not because we didn’t want to, it was just really weird. And we never did find out who had sent it anyway. To this day, I still think it was a nasty prank.
After reading the name ‘Billie’ in the card, I decided I liked that name, and that was what I called my daughter.
It was nearly Christmas, and the pair of us were sat at our kitchen table, writing out Christmas cards to our friends.
“This one’s for Granny,” I told Billie, picking out the first card at the top. It was glittery, with a picture of Santa made out of triangles on the front. I filled it out:

Dear Mum,
Happy Christmas
Love Rose and Billie
PS, can’t wait to see you on the 23RD

Then I popped the card inside the envelope and wrote out Mum’s address at the front, and our address on the back, in case the card got lost in the post.
“Are we going to stay at Granny’s this year?” Billie asked.
“Yes,” I answered my daughter. “We’ll be going there on the train the day before Christmas Eve, and coming back home the day after New Year’s Day. How does that grab you?”
Billie whooped with excitement.
“Right, I’ll just get the stamps out of my purse, and we’ll post these cards, okay?”
“Okay.”
I got the stamps out of my purse, and started to put them all on the envelopes. Finally, I got to the last one - Mum’s.
The back of the envelope was facing up. As I picked it up, I read the sender’s address - and my heart skipped a beat. I’d written my name out as Miss R Pipler. The same name written at the back of the envelope Mum and I received twenty-three years ago.
I ripped it open, and pulled out the card. The card Mum and I got twenty-three years ago was glittery and had a picture of Santa made out of triangles on the front. So did this card. And, I didn’t notice this before, I’m not sure why, they both had the same message inside:

Dear Mum,
Happy Christmas
Love Rose and Billie
PS, can’t wait to see you on the 23RD

I went running upstairs to my bedroom, and got my Memory Box out of the drawer. After Mum had ripped up the card and threw it in the bin back then, I’d salvaged it, and kept it. I found it in my box and brought it downstairs to compare it with today’s envelope.
The writing inside today’s card, and both addresses on today’s envelope were both the same handwriting as the envelope from twenty years ago.
And then to top it off, I realized what today’s date was. 19TH December. The same date Mum and I had received that card back in 2010.
‘It was me,’ I thought to myself. ‘Somehow, I sent this card back twenty-three years, in 2010, when I was twenty-two.’