The card features a simple illustration of Santa in an outhouse, with the punchline caption “The Same Old Crap – Merry Christmas.” It must have seemed like a good joke for Earl Pickett to send it back to his brother-in-law, David Truitt Reeves, a year after David sent it to Earl.

“No use waisting [sic] a good card,” Earl wrote on the card in 1934.

“They claimed they did it because of the Depression, at first,” said Earl’s son, Jim Pickett, who recently received the card in the mail again from David’s son, Bill Reeves, who now lives in Florida.

In truth, Jim suspects that his father and Bill’s dad decided back then that they’d spawned a new family tradition.

By 1953, 20 years after David first sent Earl the card, from Pennsylvania to Texas, Earl attached a note – one of many to be affixed to the card in the decades – pledging that their sons would continue to mail the card between them each Christmas, long after their fathers had passed away.

Unfortunately for Jim, Earl was only 56 when he died in 1960.

“My cousin and I have been doing this longer than our dads did,” Jim said.

Bill is 74, and Jim is 78. The two last met in person five years ago. Prior to that, they hadn’t spoken face to face for 25 years, but the Christmas card has continued to travel between them.

In spite of the fragility of its pages, some of which are thinner than tissue paper at this point, the card has always been sent by first-class mail, with no extra protections.

“These trips do speak highly of the postal service, as well as our ability to remember who has it that year and where it was stored,” said Jim, who nonetheless acknowledged that he and his cousin have occasionally misplaced the card, but always locate it before Christmas.

During its 83 years in transit, the card has been sent to and from California and North Carolina as well. Only the two fathers and their two sons have ever sent the card. Although David served as a U.S. Marine, the card has never gone through a war zone, although it has chronicled some personally and globally significant history.

“What a year 1991 was,” Jim said, looking at the pages taped to the card. “Bill lost his father, I lost my uncle, I had my kidney taken out because of cancer, and the [Soviet] flag came down.”

Each year’s notes are typically brief. Only about 20 pages have been added to the card, all the same size as the card itself, so each year winds up being summarized in a few sentences at most, with news of their relatives or reactions to world events.

“It’s whatever comes up,” Jim said. “Our other cousins are always curious about it, and the one-year reminders will come up on Facebook, so the people we know and have worked with are glad we’ve kept it up and not forgotten.”

Once Jim or Bill pass on, though, the tradition will likely be retired with them.

“I’ve got a daughter, but [Bill] never got married,” Jim said. “Other cards might have been more Christmassy, but this one was a one-of-a-kind, as far as our family was concerned. And the spirit of this holiday is about family, and just hanging in there.”