Note: I started this post last week, but have spent the last few days making the transition from stressed and befuddled corporate drone to a relaxed and truly joyful man of leisure who is enjoying the first prolonged vacation of the year. I have a couple posts backed up - but wanted to share some joyous and - hopefully - helpful advice, while there's still time.
Oh Joy. Rapture!
Trees are decorated, stockings are hung and that most wonderful time of the year is in full sway. And you know what that means, don't you?
Christmas cards and annual letters are arriving daily. Ugh.
Now, don't get me wrong - I love Christmas and the holiday season. The decorations, the lights, baking cookies, watching holiday films that you don't see the rest of the year, but the cards....the cards...
This year promises to be a new low/high and the bulk have not even yet landed.
If you haven't started yours yet, here a few simple rules to follow if you don't want your card recipients to think you are a sad prat:
Personal Ills:
Don't feel compelled to share you or your family's medical travails of the previous year. This year's batch began with a card from our favorite scotch-soaked elderly gay friends - we'll call them Ben and Dieter. Now, regardless of the fact that we saw them in person just a few months ago and have been brought up to date on every detail of their tragic year by members of our family, their card arrived early this month - the adhesive literally dissolved by scotch where Ben had licked it and began, "Dear Philip and Brian - Dieter suffered a heart attack earlier this year due to congestive heart failure. He's better but not at all well...."
Well, Merry Christmas to you, too. Fortunately, he didn't bother to go into additional excruciating detail about the discovery of Dieter's secret binge drinking problem earlier this year, his stint in rehab detoxing, or the fact that he is now severely incontinent - which is why my mother-in-law has to hide her booze in the bedroom closet when they come to visit.
Call me hard hearted, but I don't plan to begin my holiday cards with things like, "Dear Uncle Jim - Sophie now requires daily medication to prevent her from peeing in her sleep and my brothers-in-law's visit drove our elderly cat insane when they brought their new dog to visit. The cat now stalks our dogs like it's some episode of Untamed Wilderness on the Nature Channel and attacks them and us at random, frequently drawing blood..."
We really don't need to see pictures of your children if they (or you) are not attractive - or, if we are not related to you in any way. Fortunately, most of our nephews and our one niece are pretty much grown and happen to be generally aesthetically pleasing. And all of Brian's cousins who have recently bred have produced some pretty darned good looking kids. However, when former co-workers or acquaintances include us in their family photo card distribution list, the results can be quiet unsettling.
I have one former co-worker who sends us a card each year featuring an updated photo of her spotty offspring who appear to be undergoing the longest, ugliest puberty known to mankind. And each year, Brian is like, "Ugh! Who the hell are they?"
Photos of your pets are better.
Or better yet, simply resist the urge.
Holiday letters
I don’t even know where to begin this rant. It seems to me that with today’s technology and everyone you know Facebooking and Twittering their brains out – if you need to write a 2-page double-sided letter (or God forbid the 3-4 page extra postage version) to catch everyone up on what you and yours have been up to all year…you might need to edit your list.
Frankly, if those people you haven’t communicated with since last Christmas haven’t checked in at least once during the year – they probably don’t give a shit that little Johnny had that close call this past summer with the sponge that looked like cheese.
In many cases, holiday letters simply illustrate for others how shallow and mundane our lives have become. Except in rare circumstances (like us – we simply put my blog URL in our cards since our lives are continually FABULOUS with really crazy, wacky things happening all the time), nobody is really doing anything exceptional between times.
“Bob continues his (dreary and soul-killing) position at Flack Brothers where he just celebrated his 34th year (and is now a severe alcoholic). The twins just graduated with honors (from their methadone rehab program) and Gary welcomed his fourth (illegitimate) child (with as many mothers) this summer. With our empty nest (and because we are near bankruptcy from the various rehab programs) I’m thinking of re-entering the workforce until Bob retires (or dies) just to keep myself busy (and maybe then I won’t cut myself anymore)…
For others, it’s a game of one-upsmanship. I have a former boss who routinely sends out letters that sounds like family report cards on just how EXCELLENT her family is becoming through their various exploits and admirable achievements.
I will confess to having succumbed to this sad practice in the past – but refuse to set digital pen to virtual paper ever again.
Get a Facebook account. Start Tweeting, if you want others to know what you’re up to.
Or for God’s sake, pick up the phone or write a letter or e-mail once in a while.
Don’t save it up to share in eye-wrenching 7 point type on glittery goddamned poinsettia paper that is going to last about 7 seconds between opening the envelope and the trash can.
That is – unless there is something really juicy to share that you overlooked.
Then it’s going prominently into the bowl on the coffee table for holiday guests.
“Scott, Diane - look – look at this Christmas letter we got from ______. It’s a scream!”
7 comments:
Luckily, everyone we know knows our stance on the Year-End-Wrap-Up-Review-Tell-All and we get NONE OF THEM!
Yes, DuPree, there is a Santa Calus!
Ha! I'm one of those people who send out a holiday tome and these are some of my thoughts:
- Although I haven't missed a day of blogging in over five years, and I'm about to break 5000 tweets on Twitter, I still have several relatives who aren't on Facebook or Twitter, or even own a computer for that matter! (Bless their hearts.)
- I recently did an informal poll of "Who likes versus who hates" holiday letters, with the response being about 50/50. People either loved them or hated them, with the people hating them being far more vocal about why they hated them than the people who liked them were about why they liked them. :-)
- During that poll, I made a note of who hates them, and to be sure they didn't get one of mine this year. :-)
- Personally, I think that many of the things people point out as perceived rhetorical purposes of the letters tell more about themselves than about the writer of the letters. Can we say projection? :-)
- The idea of following along every day in someone's life MIGHT be more interesting to some people. But to others it MIGHT be more appealing to get "the reader's digest version once a year." I found this to be true about folks who follow A.Word.A.Day. Some love the everyday updates with "today's word," and others hate them; they prefer the "once a week summary of all the words for the week," which I personally hit delete on as soon as I see it, since I prefer the every day updates myself.
- I do totally agree with you about pictures of peoples' kids. Not interested. Same with pets for me, too, though. And I love pets. Just don't care to see pictures of yours, nor care to see their names listed on the return address label or engraved in the card's signature.
- I'm also right with you about sharing the ills, but on the other hand, if you leave out all the "bad" things that happen in the year then you're accused of intimating that everything's "excellent" and come across as a "one-upper."
Thanks for the opportunity to "rant back." :-)
I hope it's obvious that I love your writing--and I would take it EITHER once a day or once a year, electronically or double-sided as a four-page tome.
It's probably equally obvious that I have a propensity to reflect on things to death. :-)
Happy Holidays to you and yours, Philip!
As you see, we are open to all points of view here in the gene pool - even those who disagree with the royal us.
That's because we are open minded, John is an old friend, and because we drink.
Thanks for the counterpoint, John!
p.s. Much of what I say here is obviously tongue in cheek (at least, I hope so) - I'd die if my parents or any of my elder relatives read this blog or Facebook. The rest are all busy blowing things up for fun and buying hair extensions at the Dollar Store.
You crack me up. Love ya!
What do people think we do with the photos they send? Do we have an album full of OPK's (other people's kids)that we keep on a shelf.
I think when we get the photos we should send them on to someone who sent us a Christmas letter. Then we take that letter and send it to someone that doesn't even know the people who wrote it.
Kind of the drinkers version of cheque (sorry Canadian) for the light company in the envelope for the phone company switcheroo.
Photo cards, I like to draw funny faces on them.
That thing about the medical ailments. I've had my amateur radio license for 18 years now and the one thing we always made fun of was the old codgers talking about their ailments.
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