In my drawer are over a hundred unmailed Christmas cards. I know, I know… I should’ve sent them out weeks ago. I just forgot. I’m really bad at letter writing. Give me a pen and a piece of paper, and my mind blanks. The funny anecdote that had my friends rolling on the floor suddenly sounds so lame when reduced into a few hastily scribbled words, and it seems like such a copout to just sign my name under the generic Hallmark verse. I end up putting off the excruciating task of sending Christmas cards to the next day, and before I notice it, it’s Easter.

Since I got VoIP, I feel a little less guilty about forgetting to send the cards. I just call them. Mom, Dad, my sister, my nieces and nephews, even Aunt Hannah who I haven’t seen in 12 years but still sends me a sweater every year. We talk, the phone gets passed around to everyone in the house, I tell them that funny anecdote and sure enough, they laugh till they’re hoarse.

VoIP even helps them forgive me for a crime far greater than not sending a card: not flying home for the holidays. Now I love my folks and I miss them, but it’s impossible to get away from work, and even if I could, I’d rather not spend the little free time I have in a reunion with 15 other distant relatives I don’t really know and like even less. So I just phone in and talk to everyone, and promise my parents I’ll drop by when the rest of the clan has disappeared. Then I retreat to my own happy, private Christmas and thank Santa for VOIP.