I carried Christmas out to 500 mailboxes for 28 years, and I never once owned a Christmas sweater.
I carried Christmas out to 500 mailboxes for 28 years, and I never once owned a Christmas sweater.
Six things I have noticed about two sweaters, starting with the one Norlene had on in the Christmas card line at the post office last December.
Connie Mayfield · Claremore, Oklahoma · 5 min read
I am 66 and I carried the mail on a county route for 28 years, so I am not one for putting things on Facebook. Christmas cards are about the only writing I do anymore, and those are mostly addresses, which I know by heart anyhow. I live on two acres outside Claremore, Oklahoma, with my husband Dale and an old basset hound named Deputy.
The two I am writing about are the Petula and the Kerry, from Iris and Nora, a small boutique down in Austin. The Petula is a soft light blue sweater with a reindeer leaping across a round moon and a little high neck. The Kerry is a red one with raised green Christmas trees and big white snowflakes. The light blue is mine. The red one I bought for my friend Bev, who lives on the next farm over. When the boutique asked if they could put my letter up for other women to read, I said yes, as long as I could tell it the way it happened.
For 28 years, December was the heaviest month on the route. Cards, catalogs, boxes from grandkids, boxes to grandkids. I dressed for it the way I dressed for every month: fleece, work pants, boots. Last December was my first Christmas on the other side of the counter. I stood in the Christmas card line at the Claremore post office, which went out the door and down the steps, in the red sweatshirt with a cardinal on it that I have worn to every Christmas thing for eleven years. Norlene was in line ahead of me. Norlene was on my route out past Tiawah for most of those 28 years, and I know her in a barn coat and a garden hat. Not that day. She had on a light blue sweater, soft looking, with a reindeer leaping across a pale moon and a little high neck. The lady at the counter said, “Well, look at you, Norlene.” I tapped her on the shoulder and asked her, plainly, where she got it. Read on.
Norlene in the card line. She let me take this one as long as I left her face off, since she had not done her hair.
Her granddaughter had ordered it for her, from a small boutique down in Austin. I wrote the name on the back of one of my own envelopes and put it in my purse. Here is what I had been looking at in my own closet. I own one Christmas thing to wear, and it is that sweatshirt. Kelli, my daughter, has been after me about it for years. Bev owns a sweater with a Christmas tree that lights up, and the batteries ran out a few Christmases ago. Neither one of us is going to be in a magazine.
I will tell you something from the route, and it is only my opinion. Every January I carried a load of Christmas sweaters back the other way. From what folks told me at the box, they were too loud to wear past the twenty-fifth, or they choked at the neck. So I did not expect much.
For 28 Christmases I carried other people’s Christmas up to the porch. I never once had a thing to wear to my own.
I found that envelope again at the end of October, when the first cold morning came and I went digging in my purse for my gloves. I ordered both that night at the kitchen table, the light blue for me and the red for Bev. I walked Bev’s down to her mailbox the day it came, because Bev cannot wait for anything, and I have worn mine to church and to the feed store since. It comes down to six things, and I will give them to you plainly.
The day they came. I hung them both on the bedroom door before I let Bev see hers.
A reindeer and a moon, not a cartoon
The Petula has one reindeer, in a deep plum, leaping across a round cream moon in the middle of the front, with a few small stars around it. That is all. No bells, no nose, nothing that blinks. A grown woman can wear it to church and nobody thinks she lost a bet. Up close there are little colored spots knitted into the reindeer, the kind of thing you only see when you are sitting next to somebody.
Writing this year’s cards at the kitchen table, with Deputy on my feet like always.
Festive without being silly. I wore it to our church supper and three women asked me where it came from.
Marlene T., BartlesvilleA little high neck, not a turtleneck
The neck on the Petula comes up partway and stops. The boutique says it keeps out the chill without feeling tight around the throat, and I would say that is a fair description. I cannot stand a turtleneck. I spent 28 years pulling a zipper up to my chin, and I am done with anything that grabs me there.
I do not do turtlenecks and this is not one. It sits up a little and that is all. Exactly what I wanted.
Darla K., PawhuskaCalm colors that last past Christmas
The light blue is flecked through with bits of pink and cream, so it reads soft from across the room. The boutique calls the colors calm rather than loud, and that is the word for it. It also comes in beige, gray and pink, in S to XL. The shape is relaxed, with dropped shoulders and room in the body, so I wear a blouse under it. This is the one that answers what the route taught me about January. There is one reindeer on it, not a Christmas parade, so it is not going back in the box on the twenty-sixth.
The colors are so gentle. I bought it for Christmas and I already know I will be wearing it in February.
Jolene W., TahlequahTrees you can feel
Now the Kerry. Across the middle of the front there are three green Christmas trees, a big one in the center and a smaller one either side, and they are raised up off the red, so you can run your hand over them. The big white snowflakes above and below are raised the same way. Bev says it is the first Christmas sweater she has owned that you could read with your eyes shut. She was a school lunch lady for thirty years. That is how she talks.
Bev’s, on her closet door. She sent me this picture before she had even tried it on.
The trees really stand up off the sweater. My grandson kept patting them all through dinner.
Wanda J., WinfieldSnowflakes on the sleeves too
Most Christmas sweaters put everything on the front and quit. The Kerry has a big snowflake and a green tree on each sleeve as well, so it looks right from the side, which is how most people see you at a potluck table anyway. The neck, cuffs and hem are ribbed. The shape is relaxed with dropped shoulders. It comes in cream, red and teal, in S to 2XL.
Bev on her front porch, on her way over with a pie. She will not let me show her face either. She says it is her business.
Love that the sleeves have trees and snowflakes too. It looks good from every side, not just straight on.
Lou Ann L., RussellvilleOne quiet, one loud, and they go together
Bev is the loud one and I am the quiet one, and it turns out the sweaters are the same. Put the light blue next to the red and they look like they came out of the same box, which they did. If you have a sister or a best friend down the road, I would buy them as a pair. There are eighteen sweaters in this collection altogether, so you can pick hers to suit her.
Bev and me by our tree. Dale took it. It took him four tries and he still cut our heads off, which suits us both fine.
The first Sunday I wore mine, Dale looked up from the paper, which is about as much as anybody gets, and said, “Is that new?” That is a speech, for Dale. Kelli wanted the link before I had finished telling her about it. The sweatshirt with the cardinal is in the rag bag now. Deputy sleeps on it.
Bought one for me and one for my sister. We wore them to the family Christmas and got our picture taken together for once.
Bonnie R., BransonThe Petula and the Kerry, against what we had
You can keep wearing what you have, like I did for eleven Christmases. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
The same sweatshirt eleven Christmases running
A tree that needs batteries
Too loud to wear past the twenty-fifth
Everything on the front, nothing on the sleeves
Nobody asks where you got it
A reindeer leaping across a moon
A little high neck, not a turtleneck
Calm flecked colors for January
Raised trees and snowflakes, sleeves too
Dale asked if it was new
About the price
The Petula is $34.95. It was $70.00. The Kerry is $34.95. It was $70.00. Prices like that make me suspicious. I spent 28 years carrying boxes in both directions, and the ones going back tell you more than the ones going out. So I read the whole page looking for the catch, and I have not found one. They came with free shipping, they looked like the pictures, and neither one has gone back.
I will pass on what the boutique told me, which is that these come in small runs and the good colors and sizes do not stay in stock long. Their words, not mine.
And I do not trust perfect scores, so I read the reviews before I ordered. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars, which sounded like real people rather than robots. The same things I have just walked you through come up in them, over and over, in other women’s words.
If the only Christmas thing in your closet is a sweatshirt, this is where I would start. Take a look before this run sells through, because once it is gone, it is gone. And if you see Norlene, tell her Connie owes her a pie. She will say I do not owe her a thing. That is just Norlene.
Connie
THE PETULA & THE KERRY
The Kerry: $70.00 $34.95
- Petula: reindeer leaping across a moon
- Half high neck, soft flecked colors
- Relaxed shape with dropped shoulders
- Kerry: raised Christmas trees and snowflakes
- Snowflakes and trees on the sleeves too
- Petula S to XL, Kerry S to 2XL
- Eighteen sweaters in the collection
- Free shipping
Sale on now, half off. Once this run is gone, it is gone.