(Originally posted on LiveJournal)
I was watching my usual morning television (Good Morning, America) and caught a “Christmas preparation” commercial that nearly broke my heart.
Okay, that may be an exaggeration, but it did make me very sad. I don’t recall what the name of the service/store it was that was being advertised but… Here’s the “story” of the commercial — Mom is at the family laptop, with Spouse, Son and Daughter hovering behind her. Mom is putting up options of pictures that are to go on the family Christmas card. Of course, each member of the family wants one that has them front and center. While the family argues, Mom crops the pictures, drops the images of each family member into a template, clicks a button, and closes the laptop. A superscript informs the viewer that this service not only prints out the cards the way you want them, it addresses and mails them.
What struck me – negatively – is that not only did that family not see the final card, not one of the family ever touched the cards. I’m assuming the program pulls addresses from your address book database.
But it’s all automated. Not a touch. No personalized notes. No attention to the people who are receiving the cards.
At this point I thought, “If you’re going to treat sending Christmas cards as something to be done with no more emotion than paying bills, why do it at all?”
I have a really long Christmas card list. Because I like sending cards to the people in my life. Because my list is so long, I stopped buying commercially made cards long ago. Besides, I was having a hard time finding cards that really spoke to what Christmas means to me — the birth of my savior, Jesus Christ. So, being an artist, I started doing my own.
I design my own cards. I draw a new design each year, something fairly simple that will be printed in a single color. I take the design to a printer, select a specific card stock, and have the print run made. While the printing company makes the cards, I take the envelopes home and start hand addressing the envelopes.
Going through the address book, handwriting the addresses — this activity lets me think about the individual recipients. So, when I pick up the finished cards and start adding the personal notes inside, I’ve already put a little thought into how I am connected to the recipient, things that happened this last year that might be of interest to them. Or just including my holiday greeting because the recipient is someone with whom I have frequent contact.
I don’t expect quid pro quo on the sending of cards. I realize many people do not have the card-sending habit. I also used to be concerned about sending “religious” Christmas cards to my friends who either belonged to another faith or were non-believers. But when I decided to make my own cards, I gave this a lot of thought. I used to go find generic holiday cards to send to those folks. But it was an added expense. And I came to the conclusion that the sending of the cards was not about the recipients’ beliefs, it was about mine. This card-sending ritual was about why Christmas is important to me. It is my acknowledgement of all the people who have touched my life. It is about who I am. These people all know I am a Christian, and they accept that. So why should I imagine that they would be bothered by my Christmas cards?
If anyone is, they’ve never said so to me. Instead, I find that people appreciate the personal acknowledgement. People like the unique nature of my cards. They appreciate the personalized notes written in them. I think they even take in the significance of the hand addressed envelopes. I took time and thought about them specifically, if even only for a few minutes. I did not print off mailing labels, stick them on envelopes, and stick cards with preprinted signatures on them into the envelopes.
Of course, understand that I do not mind receiving cards like that from my friends. I well know that in busy families those can be time-saving steps. And like I said, Christmas cards are not about quid pro quo for me. What I have described is my ritual and what it means to me.
That commercial this morning just brought it all to mind. I have to do this year’s design and get it to the printer soon. I have to collect new addresses from friends who have moved. I have to find addresses for new friends I’ve made. And then I have to calculate how much postage I’ll have to get.
It’s a lot of labor for me, but I love it. I love contacting people at least once a year and letting them know they are thought of. It is a little bit of a family tradition. My father had a longish Christmas card list. He wrote short notes on his cards (which he often made by silk screen). I once glanced at his Christmas card “Rolodex” (index cards with a hole punched in a corner, on a large ring – with hand updated addresses). There were many people on his ring that I did not know. But I realized many of them were people from his past. I absorbed this practice as a good idea.
My ideal is to at least begin sending out my Christmas cards at the start of Advent, the time of preparation before Christmas. To do that requires beginning, well … about now. Because I never want to reach the point of having the kind of attitude toward sending Christmas cards like that shown in this morning’s commercial.
Comments
sartorias – Nov. 15th, 2010
I had to stop sending Christmas cards when the list got so impossibly long due to all the steps, halves, divorces, new kids, new relationships, then bio relationships (and people would be hurt if someone got one and someone else didn’t) but I do like getting personalized ones and keep them up until after Epiphany.)
scribblerworks – Nov. 16th, 2010
Oh, I can well understand those constraints. I’m certainly blessed that my own family doesn’t have those kinds of ruptures. But it is difficult when couples I know split and I feel connected to both parties as individuals.
What I’m also finding funny now is that children of friends are reaching adulthood, and I have to figure out how to handle that. Someone like Emily Rauscher has earned her own place on my list, but there are other youngsters who have reached college age, and I go “Hmm. Include them in a family card or send them their own?”
dewline – Nov. 15th, 2010
Understood.
At some point, I’ll have to post my own thinking on this one. Whether it makes sense once that’s done…not sure yet.
scribblerworks – Nov. 16th, 2010
I think sending the cards is a very personal choice, obviously. So if it makes sense to you, that’s what works.
banzailibrarian – Nov. 15th, 2010
Sarah, you do make the most beautiful cards, and I do appreciate them even though I don’t share your faith, because they do tell me something about you.
One of the ways I knew my marriage was coming to an end was, sadly, when my now ex-husband stopped participating in the Christmas card ritual, when we would sit around the dining table and drink cocoa and form an assembly line to fold letters and sign, seal, and stamp the cards. The year I first had to do it all myself was very sad. Now that my list is much smaller, I should take the opportunity to start making handmade cards…and being divorced, keeping up those connections now is even more important to me.
scribblerworks – Nov. 16th, 2010
Thanks for the compliments on the cards. As an artist, there’s always that sense of “Well, this pleases me, but will it touch others?” behind some designs. And sometimes, all the plans get thrown out the window in favor of something spontaneous. A couple of years ago, the geometric three kings was one of those. I’d meant to do something else entirely, but when I sat down to do the design it just wasn’t working. So I stepped back and said, “Well, what am I feeling here?” The whimsical approach to the kings popped up and I went with it.
And too, as you said, they do say something about me – which was sort of the point behind my choosing to make my own cards. “This is me, saying this about a holiday that is important to me.” I like that aspect of the activity – and am pleased that it comes through!
I think there is something powerful in the end-of-the-year season, that makes it a good time for this once-a-year type of contact with friends. I can see that beyond all the religious connotations for myself. Here in the northern hemisphere, it’s the darkest time of the year – so why not acknowledge those who are figuratively lights in one’s life? And those year’s-end wrap up letters from friends are always nice to read.
LOL! I’m working myself up to the Christmas spirit, and it’s not even Thanksgiving yet! If I’m not careful I’m going to start bursting out with chirps like Tiny Tim! “God bless us every one!”
Oh, why not? Bless you all! 😀
wellinghall – Nov. 17th, 2010
Do you know this?
http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/395/
scribblerworks – Nov. 18th, 2010
No, I hadn’t read that before. Ha.
😀
But yeah, those perfunctory “obligation” gifts do rather undercut the nature of gift giving for Christmas.
