Joke Card Is the Gift That Keeps on Giving

Back in 1953, fed up with holiday cheer, Joe Staab bought co-worker Gerry Champion an “ugly little Christmas card” that was green and brown with pine cones on the front.

Forty-nine years later, the same old tattered card keeps going back and forth.

“It started as a joke,” Champion said of the exchange that began when she and Staab worked at a naval accounting office in Atlantic City, N.J.

Champion sends it in even years; Staab sends it in odd years.

Each year, whoever sends the card writes a brief message. With time, the messages have shrunk the available space, but there’s still room for years to come.