Christmas Card Tradition Bonds 2 NJ Women, 41 Years And Counting

NEW JERSEY — The edges of the card are worn, its corners rounded. Small holes from push pins dot the inside, signs of it being proudly displayed. Layers of Scotch tape along the fold hold it together, keeping it ready for another trip through the mail.

For 41 years, one Christmas card has brought tidings of “A Season of Peace and Serenity” to the homes of Laurie Matthews and Karen Petillo, its inside cataloging a lifetime of changes as Matthews and Petillo mailed it back and forth.

While many people exchange Christmas cards for years with the same group of friends and family, Matthews and Petillo have been exchanging one card — the same card — every year.

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“It started as a joke,” Matthews said. She was in the midst of planning her wedding in 1980 when she mailed out cards to a bunch of people, including Petillo, who she had met because they were both dating men who were members of the Hamilton Fire Company in Neptune.

There was one problem: Matthews forgot to sign the card.

“I received this card and it wasn’t signed,” Petillo said, adding that she doesn’t believe there was a return address on the envelope. Instead of tossing it in the trash, she held onto it.

When Matthews and her now-husband came over for a holiday gathering, Petillo said she told Matthews about the card.

“I got this card, it’s driving me crazy. I didn’t want to throw it out for some reason,” Petillo said she told Matthews, and showed her the card. “That’s my card,” Matthews said.

“I said, ‘You didn’t sign it.’ ‘I didn’t?’ she said,” Petillo said. “So I opened it up and showed her.”

After Christmas, Petillo held onto the card, and when the following Christmas rolled around, she dated the card and added her initials, and mailed it back to Matthews. A tradition was born.

The two were good friends; they had gotten married six weeks apart, and their first children — Matthews’s daughter and Petillo’s son — were born six weeks apart and were friends and classmates in high school. But after Matthews moved to Brick, the contact between the two lessened, because of the busyness of life. They kept up indirectly, through their children and through mutual friends. They connected on Facebook at one point, and traded email addresses and phone numbers, but the card has been the thread keeping their friendship going.

“We lost touch for a while, except for the card,” Matthews said.

A couple of times the card got misplaced.

“That’s why it’s signed twice in 2013,” Matthews said. “When she found it she initialed it and mailed it to me, and I initialed it and mailed it back.”

“I knew the year before I put it in a safe place,” Petillo said. “It just got mixed in with a different group of important items.”

Matthews said she bought a box of envelopes the right size for the card for her turns mailing it; Petillo picks up extra envelopes on the years it’s her turn.

Unlike so many who send Christmas cards, the two women never included a note updating each other on what had happened in life over the previous year, which has included multiple moves. The two met while Matthews lived in Neptune City and Petillo in Wayside. Matthews lived in Brick Township for 33 years before moving to Florida when she and her husband, Dan, retired. Matthews owns a small home in one of the Manchester age-restricted communities for when they come north each year for a few months while Dan works for a fireworks company as a pyrotechnician.

Petillo moved several times, and currently lives in Bordentown near one of her sons. It was that most recent move that prompted her to email Matthews.

“ ‘I wanted to give you my new address,’ ” the email said. Matthews and her husband were in New Jersey on their trip north, so she reached out to Petillo by text message and suggested they get together.

“It’s probably been 30, 35 years since we’ve seen each other,” Matthews said. They met at a restaurant in Pemberton and spent more than four hours talking and catching up.

“It’s like we didn’t miss a beat,” Matthews said.

“It was like no time had passed,” Petillo said.

They’re already planning another long lunch next year.

“I can’t wait until next summer to get back with her and talk more,” Matthews said.

In the meantime, the card will get mailed again this year — it’s Matthews’s turn to send it out. They expect the tradition will continue at least as long as they’re both still alive, possibly longer.

“We’ve joked that the two older kids have to take it over when we pass,” Petillo said.

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