Christmas...Perhaps...Should Mean a Little Bit More

Here is my #1 holiday pet peeve: receiving family photo Christmas “cards” that come pre-printed with a generic holiday greeting and the names of the family members.

At the risk of offending all of my friends who send me cards like that each year, I have to say first that I do appreciate knowing that I’m a good-enough friend to receive a card from you, and I do like seeing photos of your children to see how they’ve grown/changed over the past year. BUT--and here’s where I realize I’m going to come off like a Grinch at best and a bitch at worst--I’m not friends with your children; I’m friends with YOU.  Your kids are super cute, but please understand that if you send me a “card” with no personal greeting whatsoever, it’s going straight into my recycling bin.  

Harsh?  Probably.  But true?  Yes.  And here’s why: the sheer lack of personal greeting.  In most cases, people send each other Christmas cards because they are friends.  That means that they have experienced all kinds of personal things together, that they have shared laughter and sometimes tears, that they know each other better than they know a lot of other people and that they like each other nonetheless.  If you’re like me, a lot of your best friends, the people to whom you’ve offered up significant pieces of yourself and of your life, live all over the country and maybe even all over the world, so you don’t talk to each other all that often, nor do you see each other very much at all.  It may be that aside from your texts and posts on facebook, your last phone conversation was 2 or 3 years ago, but when you sit down to make a mental list of your closest friends, those people are still on that list because the bonds you’ve made at some point in your lives are ones that can’t easily be broken.  

So while the holidays are a time of stress for everyone, in my opinion they should also be the one time of year when you reach out to your friends--especially your true friends, the ones you don’t talk to every day but who knew you and liked you when you were 13 and awkward or who ate dinner with you every night from the ages of 18-22--and that should be something more than a glossy photo of your family with a generic “Merry Christmas from the Joneses.”  I normally sit down each holiday season and write personal cards to those who matter most to me.  Yes, it’s time-consuming, and yes, it’s a chore, but I do it anyway.  While I used to receive equally personal cards from friends, in the past 4-5 years, I’ve discovered that hardly anyone sends that kind of card anymore, and it makes me sad...and annoyed.

The worst offenders are the cards that are pictures only of the kids.  Again, I like seeing your kids, but your kids are not the people I’m excited about when I see the envelope with your return address on it.  When I rip that envelope open, I’m looking forward to seeing what you have to say, even if it’s just a short little note.  It’s naturally a big letdown when what is inside the envelope is a photo of your kids and nothing else.  I understand that my friends love their children and are enormously proud of them, but I don't understand why when people become parents they automatically assume that all of their friends would prefer to see photos of the beings they have brought into the world rather than seeing photos of or hearing from the beings said friends actually know and love.  I don't think it should be one or the other. 

Thus, if I’m going to get a blank Christmas photo card, I prefer one that is a photo of the entire family. But to be honest, that’s still not quite satisfying enough if you’re someone I don’t see on a daily basis.  I would say that 99% of the Christmas photo cards I receive from friends I haven’t talked to or seen in person for long periods of time include no letter update (which I do enjoy reading) and handwritten message, not even a “Hey, hope all is well!”  In fact, most of the cards don’t even have handwritten addresses on the envelopes.  I assume, then, that these friends of mine have some sort of Christmas card list on their computers that generate mailing labels that they can print with the touch of a button.  The bottom line, then, is that when I think of the time I spend writing individualized Christmas cards for my friends and I think about how most of those friends probably don’t even know they’re sending me cards because their computers do all the work except for physically sticking the label on the envelope, I can’t help but think that our friendship matters a lot more to me than it does to them.  When I write personalized cards, I’m thinking about that person and recalling why he or she is important to me. When people print off and send Christmas photo cards, is it really about reaching out to their friends?

Based on how many people send Christmas photo cards in lieu of handwritten notes these days, I know I am in the minority, and I suppose I should just make my peace with the fact that the art of letter-writing or card-writing is defunct, and I suppose I should be happy to receive anyone’s Christmas card photo after having written this blog.  I will reiterate what I said earlier: it’s not that I don’t care about your family.  It’s just that I care about you and our friendship more.  And I miss all of you I don’t see on a daily basis, and I guess it would just be nice at Christmastime to know that you all miss me a little bit, too.  If that makes me a Grinch, so be it.