I use to have several pen pals growing up. My sisters and I had the same pen pals all through grade and high school. It's a good story so I am going to tell it...
My grandparents were engaged and Grandpa was working at his carnival booth in Southend, Essex a vacation spot. It was days away from his wedding when he met a couple and invited them to the wedding. They did things like that back then; invite complete strangers to your wedding! Ha! Well, this couple became their best friends.
Both couples ended up having children near the same age. My Mom and Jane became best friends. Even with a move to America, my mother and grandparents still stayed in touch! My sisters and I started writing Jane's three children around third or fourth grade.
We were very creative in our pen pal packages to England, or should I say my mother was. If you were going to send a package overseas it better be, right?! We loved sending recorded cassettes of us! We would record television shows, popular music, our letter (because listening to a letter was more fun than reading it), and one year my Mom sent all our Halloween Trick or Treating candy to them. I am going to be honest and say that was traumatic really.
My favorite packages were the ones with British Cadbury candies, recordings of the popular soap opera "Neighbors", and music by Kylie Minogue. I also loved getting cassettes of our pen pals voices. Oh my word, their accents rocked. lol...
When we were juniors, my sister and I were sent to England by my grandparents and we stayed with Jane's and our pen pals for two months. I had the opportunity to meet her parents and hear was it was like being best friends with my grandparents.
Now, the modern pen pal has started Pocket Letters, which is just as creative as we were as children! I am sending this one overseas to my teammate Kim Jeffress. You can read all about it on Heidi's blog today.
Create Often: Sending a pen pal package? Make it count. Be creative.
