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Texas men trade same Christmas card for decades

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The Associated Press Updated 4:26 PM Saturday, December 24, 2011

WHITEHOUSE, Texas — A Christmas card that crisscrossed the country as part of an old joke between two Texas men will rest this holiday for the first time in 61 years.

Acker Hanks mailed the card to his former neighbor Lee Kelley in 1950. Kelley, a prankster, mailed it back a year later.

The two continued sending the card back and forth, and when Kelley died, his widow mailed the tattered message for over a decade. Last year, it returned to Hanks unread. He believes Kelley's widow moved to a nursing home.

A list of dates and places in the worn card documents its journey. Hanks plans to frame it.

"I always looked forward to getting the card," he told the Tyler Morning Telegraph (http://bit.ly/vbaPyB). "I don't think it'll ever leave me now."

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Information from: Tyler Morning Telegraph, http://www.tylerpaper.com

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December 24, 2011 09:20 PM EST

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