It often seems as if Christmas time is all about making choices. See? I just made one right there; choosing to use the traditional name of the holiday instead of the secularly sanitized euphemism, “Holiday season.” But this column is not an update from that battlefront.
The Christmas choices I’m thinking about involve much less weighty decisions. Like whether or not I should put up every string of outdoor lights that we have accumulated in our warehouse of decorations? Do the lights have to follow every inch of roofline and wrap hundreds of times around each tree trunk and porch pillar? Does every exterior window really need to be framed with twinkling lights? Wouldn’t a simple line of lights along the eaves suffice this year?
While I’m making lighting choices, should this be the year I finally acquiesce to my wife’s annual “suggestion” that we try all-white lights instead of our customary, time-honored, it’s-how-our-kids-were-raised, passed-down-from-generation-to-generation, the-axis-of-the-earth-will-shift-if-we-break-with-tradition use of multi-colored bulbs? That’s easy. Not a chance.
We had to make another crucial choice last week; whether or not our annual Christmas card will include a photo of our youngest son who, technically at least, is still living here. I say technically, because, while he does still have a bedroom here at home, for all intents and purposes he has lived on campus at his school in San Diego for probably 98% of the past year. Last summer he worked full time and lived on campus and only was home for a week or two at most.
Even so, we couldn’t help but wonder if he’d feel left out if we didn’t include him in this year’s card? Even worse, what if the photo of my wife and I did include our two new dogs – no kids (at least of the human kind), just dogs. Would our son’s feelings be hurt? Would he feel displaced by the new hounds in our home? We’ll soon find out, as the card we chose after much deliberation and handwringing does indeed show just my wife and I and both dogs. Gulp.
In our defense, however, our youngest son simply hasn’t been home enough this year even for me to get a photo of the three of us together. So there.
Debating over our Christmas cards brought up yet another choice that had to be made. Namely, should we include a dreaded “Christmas letter” with our cards this year, or do we give everyone on our list a break? The often-maligned practice of writing these things would make a good subject for an entire column, but again, not today.
Spoiler alert: If you’re on our Christmas card list this will ruin the surprise, but we did finally decide to send a letter along with our photo card this year – in part because so much has happened with our family since last Christmas and even more will be happening in the coming year.
We also chose to include a letter because it solves the problem of not including our kids in the photo on the card itself. The letter that will soon be mailed with our cards has interesting updates (hopefully) about each of four of our adult kids and their respective spouses, families and/or significant others – complete with photos of everyone involved, even the dogs. Problem solved.
Now that that choice has been made, our decision-making is by no means over. We still need to come to an agreement as to how many of our legendary Chase family Christmas cookies will be cut out, baked and overly-decorated this season. My wife would be happy with a single batch of approximately three dozen cookies. I’m leaning more towards two or three times that amount. After all, our kids may not live under our roof any longer, but that doesn’t mean they don’t come back to eat everything in sight.
I’ll see you ‘round town.
It’s that most wonderful, horrifying time of the year: time to decide who gets a Christmas card and who doesn’t. Do we send a card to everyone in our address book, or just close friends and relatives? Do only those people who sent us a card last year get one this year?
I’m not quite sure, but I think that’s how it worked in my childhood home. I remember that mom had this special hardbound address book with a rubber band around the outside and tattered pages inside. Every year sometime after Thanksgiving, she would bring it out from whatever super-secret place it hid all year, blow the dust off the thing, carefully remove the aging rubber band and slowly lift its faded green cover.
Don’t hold me to it, but I could swear I heard the sound of angels singing each time mom opened that book, revealing pages of beautifully hand-written names of chosen family and friends. Talk about your naughty and nice list. This thing was like the Christmas Card Book of Life. There was a small square in the columns next to each name to check off the years not only when our family sent that person a Christmas card, but more importantly, whether or not the recipients sent one to us that year, as well.
Again, I can’t be certain, but I’m pretty sure that if there was a blank square in the “received” column for last year, that poor schmo was gettin’ squat in their mailbox from us this year. Booyah and bah humbug.
I’m not even sure if mom still has that book. If she does, I live too far away from her house these days to hear the angel chorus when she opens it up. But times are changing when it comes to sending traditional cards, anyway. With the near universal use of the Internet, more people are sending e-cards or my personal favorite – custom-printed photo cards from one of several online services that let you insert your own family photos into pre-designed card formats. You can even upload your own address book data and have each card preaddressed and mailed for you without ever touching the things. It’s certainly convenient, if not exactly personal and heartfelt.
I still prefer to hand write each address and include some sort of note with our cards. Although I do dread each year when we address the last of the envelopes (I have a tendency to order exactly the number of cards on our list), affix the last of carefully counted “holiday-themed” stamps from those politically correct folks at the U.S. Postal Service, and drop the entire stack into the mailbox.
So why such trepidation? Because it never fails that – when all the cards and stamps are in the mail – I’ll go home and find a card or two from someone who hasn’t sent us a card in years, or ever, and who we didn’t send one to this year. Arrrghhhhh! Will they hate us now because they aren’t getting a card from us? Should we rush out and buy one just for them? Grit our teeth and hope they don’t notice and be sure to send one next year? What if it’s too late and they cross us off their card list? Oh, the pressure.
As I write this, my wife and I haven’t decided if we’ll even send out cards this season. With our kids spread out further and further across the country each passing year, it’s almost impossible to get a photo of all of us to put on a card. Last year for the first time, in fact, our “family” photo card featured just my wife and me. No kids. Quite honestly, it made me feel less than holly and jolly to send them out.
Yep, it looks like we may be on several naughty lists next year. I’ll see you ‘round town.
