My social experiment - it's never too early to celebrate Christmas 🤶!!

I promised you some beautiful Christmas cards and here they are!!!

The other day I wrote about taking things one step up for my social experiment. This social experiment is about seeing if I can earn the trust of my fellow Steemians. By you giving me your address so I can send you a postcard. 12 people did, and for some it turned out to be a postcard exchange as I got quite a few back! I'm going to be sending out Christmas cards this month. We have some gorgeous 3D Christmas cards that are all locally made in Taiwan. Here are a few that I bought yesterday.

Aren't they beautiful!! I love how festive they are, and 3D adds another dimension to the normal Christmas cards. And on top, they are very affordable which means I won't have to worry about breaking my bank 😁

I sent out the first one today, to Hive account@soyunasantacruz in Venezuela. She is one of the first few who joined my social experiment. You can read her post about receiving my postcard here. Last time my postcard took a month to get to Hive account@soyunasantacruz so I want to make sure her Christmas card arrives in time for Christmas. Sending a postcard to Venezuela was an experiment and learning curve for me. I have since learnt

• when you send mail to someone in Venezuela, it goes to their local post office. You have to add the recipients phone numbers underneath the address
• the Venezuelan postal office have stopped international postal services two years ago
• you can send things abroad via private companies but the cost is way too expensive
• many locals can barely afford to buy food, eating is considered a luxury
• unemployment is high and even if you have a job you may not get paid
• bartering and selling your possessions is a way of survival
• Venezuelans live under a dictatorship and fear

Normally when I receive a postcard, I will post about it and set a 10% beneficiary to the sender as a gesture of thanks. Hive account@soyunasantacruz wanted to send a postcard back to me. But her situation makes it very difficult to do that. I would never want to put more burden on her than she already has, and ultimately it's the thought that counts more than anything else. Therefore I'm going to set 50% beneficiary payout to her for this post. I don't know how much that will help in Venezuela nowadays. But if it buys her a loaf of bread or a bowl of rice, I hope she can feel the love from the many Steemians from around the world who have supported her.

I have also slipped in a little Christmas present for her. I made the pattern on the pendant, similar to the coasters that I gifted to people at SteemFest. I chose this particular one as it looks like walking along a road towards a brighter future. I hope she likes it.

If any one else would like to receive one of these beautiful Christmas cards from Taiwan or a postcard of you don't celebrate Christmas, please don't be shy and send me a message. You can find me on Discord livinguktaiwan#6787 or Telegram @L_U_T or Steemchat livinguktaiwan. Hope to hear from you!

I am also entering this post to the Mondays Misson competition hosted by Hive account@qurator. The theme this week is Christmas Extravaganza. Sending Christmas cards is a tradition that's only become popular in the past couple of centuries, let's hope the tradition can continue for much longer.