February is a busy month in the mail calendar, and we can’t wait for it to start! Are you ready?
We love a good mail challenge around here, and since February is the Month of Letters, it is time to dust off all that special stationery and put pen to paper! It’s the perfect opportunity for reconnecting with family and friends, sending a Valentine card to your special someone, saying thank you to the helpful people in your life… or simply surprising strangers across the world with postcards! 😉
The rules of the Month of Letters challenge are simple:
- Mail at least one item through the post every day it runs. Write a postcard, a letter, send a picture or a cutting from a newspaper… anything goes!
- Write back to everyone who writes to you. This can count as one of your mailed items.
That’s it! The challenge started back in 2012, after American writer Mary Robinette Kowal decided it was time for a break from the internet. She spent a month offline, and asked her friends to communicate with her through letters. The results were relaxing and intimate, so she decided to invite others to join, sparking a yearly flurry of correspondence.
If you’re planning to join this year, you’re welcome to share your progress with other participants on this forum topic.
Another happy mail-related event coming up is Mail Carrier Appreciation Day, which happens every year on February 4th. This is the day to celebrate our trusty mail carriers, who make it possible for this hobby to exist by delivering all our postcards!
The date falls on a Sunday this year, so be sure to prepare something nice for your mail carrier the day before — for instance, pour your gratitude into a thank you note that you’ll deliver (or affix to your mailbox) for them to discover on their rounds. I’m sure it’ll be the highlight of their day week!
If you can, take a photo of what you did to celebrate this special day, and share a link to it in the comments! 😊
29 comments so far
Love this pause for extra appreciation of our favorite medium and the people who make it possible! Thanks for sharing :)
Thank you for the interesting idea to CONGRATULATE the postman!!! I'll write to the whole department!!!!
Very exciting!
Thank you for waking me up! I always do February mail moth. So have to shop for more paper and stamps......how lovely.
Just visited the postal museum in Paris (le Musée de la Poste), and now I have even more awe and respect for the post. A month of letters is a wonderful way to celebrate!
I still exchange letters! I learned to write them when I was a teenager, to send news to my uncles who lived in other cities. The practice stays with me to this day. I have great letter friends and at the time of friendshipsbooks, I received several back, full of new addresses. And I've had the pleasure of meeting correspondents in person and participating in beautiful meetings with people who enjoy writing and receiving letters.
This will be my 12th year participating in the Month of Letters and appreciate the support of so many volunteers who make it extra fun by setting up challenges throughout the month and connections across the world. Already have my Mail Carrier appreciation items handy for next weekend, thanks for the reminder.
Oh, how fun! I am really going to try to do this! Who doesn't love getting a little snail mail?
LEAP YEAR
Dust off you Feb 29th date stamps and organise meetups.
We have a centralised post-office where I live so mail is picked-up, not delivered. It is also closed on Sunday. None-the-less the crew at the pick-up window deserve a bit of recognition so I`ll take some goodies to them on Saturday. Thanks for the recommendation!
Both of these are wonderful ideas/events. I've enjoyed letter writing since I was a young teen. Now I'm an ol' grandma. ;) My grandson will definitely be getting some mail from me next month (especially since his birthday is also in February!).
Booked my calendar for the day: "February 4th".
Thanks for the recommendation!
Cheers to the Mail Carriers & Happy Postcrossing!
:) :D
I will be writing a letter every day in February, and I will be baking cookies for our mailman, which will be packaged with a thank you note. (In the summertime, we leave ice cold water for him on hot days)
Receiving letters is a highlight of the day. Today one came from an old friend in her inimitable handwriting. A lovely thing.
yay for mail delivery people. In New Zealand, we've only had mail delivered 3 days a week for several years now. Packages can come 5 days a week though and they're delivered by couriers (separate to mail delivery people)
A friend had already reminded me of the InCoWriMo (is that different than the Month of Letters?) I just sent a copy of "It Came In The Mail" to a kindergarten class who will be studying the mail. So fun to tuck in some Year of the Dragon things; valentines; origami jumping frogs for Leap Day! I will send them a postcard for Kindness Day, February 17, too. :)
It's a very funny idea !! :)
My plan is to attach a small bag of home made cookies and a thank you note to the mailbox. Wouldn't you know that this would be the week that there was NO mail delivery one day. Don't know why, just no mail delivery, though USPS showed the mail that was to be delivered.
I'm ready for this challenge. I wrote a thank you note to our mail carrier and I have a list of 29 people who will be getting a letter from me.
Happiness is.......
Surprise and delight.
Namaste 🙏 Gail Bacon
I really love writing letters, but there are fewer and fewer people around me who send letters on paper. That's why I'm very happy to have discovered Postcrossing. Now I can pursue my passion more again.
I just put a git card for my mail lady and a thank you note so she can pick it up tomorrow
I asked the members of my Rainbows Penpal Club to send me letters to thank my Postman for bring all their letters to me, day in and day out! I have several to give him on Saturday so I hope it will make his day!
Marjorie
All the fountain pens are filled up and the stationery is ready. There are plenty of address labels and selfmade envelopes...
Anyone who wishes to exchange a letter with me that month: direct-message me for the address.
I found a bunch of lovely penfriends this way ✒️🙋♀️
Been training my 3 year old grandson on how to post a card, what a mailbox looks like, the different slots for local n foreign mails. Just today, we saw a postal van collecting mails from the postbox. He was in awe n very excited too. Explained briefly to him where the mails will be going, sorted n then delivered to their various destinations......my eldest 8 year old grandson is already familiar with this..........Hope they will grow to be PostCrossers too..........cheers.
Thank you card ready to go in the mailbox tomorrow for my mail carrier!
I just put a card and a gift card in my letter box for my mail carrier.
Ich bin selbst Postbote. Es muss wirklich nicht sein, dass jede(r) jeden Tag einen Brief oder eine Postkarte schreibt. Das wäre viel zu viel zum Zustellen.;-) Ich freue mich aber über jedes, vielleicht sogar in einer Kalligrafie-Schrift, geschriebene Kuvert und jede Postkarte, die ich in einen Briefkasten einlegen darf. Und wenn sich meine Kunden mit einem Lächeln bedanken, ist dies ein wunderbares Geschenk.
Meine Kolleginnen, die bei mir zustellen, fragen mich bei jeder Postcrossingkarte nach ihrer Herkunft und freuen sich daran.
I made cookies and put them and a thank you note on my mailbox for our mail carrier.
My Postman (in England) is such a cheery fellow! He delivers all my penpal mail (and there's a lot as I run a snail mail penpal club called Rainbows!) in all weathers and he always has a smile and a cheery word! I asked my penpals to write him a thank you letter so imagine his surprise when I had letters for him instead of the other way round!! I have a lovely photo of him holding his letters but can't find a link to upload it!
Marjorie
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