Ode to the Danish post: My two aunts Annika

My cousin posing with a postal box in Copenhagen in 2024.

I was sad to hear that the Danish postal service recently decided to stop mailing letters, because one of my favorite stories about my family members in Denmark involves two women with the exact same name sending letters to each other.

That was cool.

See, I have two aunts in Denmark with the same name, first and last. For the sake of everyone’s privacy, though, I will call them Annika Nielsen.

And the first Annika Nielsen, my father’s sister, loved to tell me how fun it was to send letters to the second aunt Annika Nielsen, who married her brother, so hey could laugh about how the postal person delivering the letters might be thinking, “Oh, this poor woman; she’s so lonely she has to send letters to herself!”

But these days there aren’t enough Annikas, or anyone else, in Denmark sending letters, cards or even bills to justify the country continuing having its postal service deliver them. As proof, when I asked my first aunt Annika when was the last time she mailed a letter, even she couldn’t remember! 

Though my aunt did report that if she does ever need to mail a letter or package, she has easy options nearby, so I needn't mourn the loss of letter service.

So instead I'll go back to mourning what I will never find in my mailbox ever again: A red envelope mailed from Netflix, which decided 2.5 years ago to stop mailing DVDs: