For a university professor, there comes a feeling of freedom that is hard to explain after a college commencement. The stress of weeks of advising, calculating grades, assessing final exams, and fielding last-minute (and often questionable) excuses, yields to a few hours of everybody dressing in medieval robes and going through an ancient ceremony of finality and (hopefully) new beginnings. Commencement. And only one more faculty meeting standing between me and the short holiday break ahead.

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My Christmas cards went out a few minutes earlier than usual this year. As a rule, I don’t want the cards postmarked any earlier than December 1. This year, I waited until later on November 30 to mail the cards from the main post office in downtown Birmingham; after they were put in the box, I saw that the last Saturday pick-up was 8:00 p.m.

It was approximately 7:45 when I noticed that.

I began to get text and email acknowledgements of my cards’ receipt on December 1 and, indeed, the postmark was November 30. Nobody but I would notice or care about that little trivia.

That annual Christmas card – usually with a photograph of an older Alabama church building – has become a year-long project which I have written about in the past. As soon as the cards go out around December 1, I start searching for another image to feature next year. That decision is usually made some time in January; the next few months are spent revisiting the image and thinking about messages when I have some free time and need a break.

The message changes over the course of the year, depending on what’s happening in the world. Some variation of “Peace” has been a constant since 9/11/2001.

In the first few years of the project, I usually stuck with a basic “Merry Christmas” and “Peace on Earth” type message. This year, the “Merry Christmas” was accompanied by “Peace | 2020 | Hope.” That means something to me, whether recipients get it or not. I feel like 2020 may be a watershed year for our world, not unlike 1968 was in my youth, and I look forward to it with both excitement and trepidation.

My Christmas card combines my interests in photography, history, ecclesiastical architecture, and architecture and nature in general. It is always a way to touch base with those I don’t always hear from during the year. The card “restores my soul.” I have written in the past about how each card I address (over 200 this year) becomes a “brief meditation” on that recipient.

My church this year is a 2018 photograph of St. Francis at the Point, a pretty white Anglican church in the charming village of Point Clear on Mobile Bay. It is just down the way from the Grand Hotel where I try to spend a few days each December between commencement and Christmas. On occasion, if my Point Clear trip coincides with a Sunday morning, I will attend an Advent service at St. Francis. On a sunny December morning, with sunlight streaming through the abundant clear glass windows, it is a perfect place for reflection, hope, and meditation. The building is actually a 21^st Century structure, dedicated in 2001, but it captures the essence of a style of church architecture that inspires me to grab the camera. The little St. Francis at the Point Chapel, originally built in 1898, sits near the newer building; it adorned my card a few years ago.

My Christmas card is an act of celebration of the holidays and the season to come. It is looking forward to a freshly-pressed year hanging on the line and just almost, almost within our reach – with all of the potential that image represents.

Commencement.