Saskatoon StarPhoenix

Same Christmas card shared for 32 years

It’s a lasting link between two friends

- ELISE STOLTE

It was the year E.T. wanted to phone home. Edmontonia­ns were clubbing at Scandals and Flashback, Ottawa was in the midst of a constituti­onal crisis and the up-and-coming Oilers won the NHL’s Smythe division for the first time.

Mike Leggett sent a Christmas card to his boss in 1982 and started a Christmas tradition that persists to this day.

As a joke, he bought a card and addressed it to Michael, from “Mom and Dad.” Then he crossed that out and re-addressed it to his boss, Rodger Noble, at the Kingston Bank of Montreal in Ontario.

It was funny because the year before, Noble’s wife thanked him for a card and joked that Noble didn’t want to spend the money to send him one in return.

“It’s not that I’m cheap. It’s just he was too cheap to send me a card,” Leggett said.

“IT’S KIND OF COOL THAT IT’S GONE ON THIS LONG.”

MIKE LEGGETT

He thought it was a oneoff laugh. But the next year, Noble added a small note and sent the card back. They’ve carried on that way ever since, taking turns to add a note each year chroniclin­g the birth, deaths, graduation­s, and nearly a half a dozen moves around the country, including a move to Edmonton in March 2011.

The card is now packed solid with hand-writing and Noble added a folded sheet of paper that has also been filled up.

Noble is no longer Leggett’s boss. He’s now a good friend and the card has become a lasting link between their families.

“It’s kind of cool that it’s gone on this long,” Leggett said, a day after mailing the letter to Ontario again. “It’s neat when you look back on it.”

 ?? LARRY WONG/Postmedia News ?? Edmonton’s Mike Leggett has been sending and receiving the same Christmas card back and forth with his friend for
more than 30 years. It started as a joke and kept going.
LARRY WONG/Postmedia News Edmonton’s Mike Leggett has been sending and receiving the same Christmas card back and forth with his friend for more than 30 years. It started as a joke and kept going.

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