Every year, when we receive Christmas cards in the mail, I tape them up on the dining room wall. I like it. I like that it makes the house look Christmasy and warm and friendly. I like to see the varied images of stables and mangers and wisemen and even Santa and reindeer and snowy landscapes decorating the plain-in-every-other-season wall.
But this year, as I look at the wall, I feel slightly disturbed. We've received six "cards" so far. Only they're not actually cards. They are photographs. Photographs of the sender and family with some holiday-ish greeting imprinted on the front. So I have pictures of six families taped on the dining room wall. It's weird.
Before I go further, I want to clearly put it out there that I did that once. I sent picture greetings of my firstborn on her first Christmas and I wanted everyone to see how beautiful she was. I paid Costco to turn one of her photos into a card, of sorts, and mailed them out to our friends and family. I did it and even now, if I had the money, I'd be tempted to do it again. I'm totally willing to lump myself in with the crowd when I say that it's weird. Because I know that I want to do it so that you can see how cute my kids are. And what in the world does that have to do with Jesus coming to earth as a baby?
As if Christmas weren't enough about us already.
Now we send pictures of ourselves to long lists of people, most of whom aren't close enough to us that they would have a picture of us in their homes otherwise. It feels a little presumptuous. It feels a little sneaky. "I know a photo of me and my children couldn't make it into your home in any other way, but because it's Christmas, you're now obligated to display us for a while." <sly smile>
I think I'd rather receive misleading, watercolor images of cozy mangers filled with sweet, clean hay--however unlikely -- or even ridiculous renderings of blond, blue-eyed virgin Marys -- even more unlikely. I think I prefer sarcastic cartoon Santas making rude jokes to his reindeer. I think I prefer anything to saying "Hey, look at me. Oh, and Merry Christmas. Are you still looking at me? What do you think of these matching outfits?"
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Wow! You're cynical! ;-) My husband and I were just commenting that if it's not a picture card, we don't even look at it or read it except for the signature. We like to look at pictures and see how the kids have grown or who's changed or who looks like whom. We like to comment on how photogenic that family is or what a nice spot they're in. Printed cards just hold no allure for us anymore.
ReplyDeleteAnd for the most part, we send pictures of our kids to people knowing that after Christmas they will probably be thrown away. But at least they can see how the kids have changed over the year and yes, how cute they are.
But don't get me started on some people's annual Christmas letter, or I might show my cynical side, too.