On Christmas Cards....

Thirty years ago Suann and I sat down at our kitchen table in Harrison NY and took a photo surrounded by spices. We titled it “Seasonings Greetings” and so started a holiday card tradition that has seen some good and not so good puns. We both have our favorites - Suann’s is Happy New Ear from 1999 (appropriate this year as she deals with hearing loss) and mine is “Hope Your Holidays are a real GAS.” We have been “reprimanded” for one (“Best Witches”) as one of our friends felt it was a little too pagan and congratulated for another. Our 2010 card, “Marry Christmas” doubled as an announcement (we had gotten married earlier in the year and besides our families no one knew) and elicited numerous texts after it arrived in people’s mailboxes; the texts were kind and loving and downright funny: “WTF? Did I know about this?” 

We have tried to honor moments - in 2001 we dressed as priests and simply said, “Priests on Earth.” Last year, still reeling from the election we tried to emphasize the positive (“We BEElieve....). And people. The year Debbie died we did a take off on a card she had given us years before (“It’s true no two flakes are alike...”) and this year we dressed as bananas, a salute to Wally who thought bananas were the cure to everything.

Just as we have changed so has the technology. We do it all on a computer now and have moved from black and white to color. We started off sending postcards (stamps costs 19 cents in 1988) but now it depends on the message. This year stamps cost 49 cents. 

I will admit that sometimes I think we have come to the end of the road but then someone asks, “Have you done your card yet?” Apparently puns are always welcome in the mailbox.

LIFE IS RANDOM LOVE IS NOTTM

(As an aside, should you be in need of any costumes: cows, bees, bananas, etc...give us a call we can probably hook you up.)

From Perfunctory to Celebratory

When it comes to holiday decorating Suann and I are rather perfunctory. Simple. Minimalist. Very different from when I was a kid and Bunny would wrap greenery and garland around everything - from bannisters to chandeliers, cover the mantel and built-ins with cut greens, pull out the Christmas Spode and light up each window with a single electric candle. Bows were abundant as were our beliefs - the crèche stood front and center on the mantle, the Advent wreath in the middle of the dining room table, the Advent calendar on the counter and for a few years we created a Jesse tree on one of the doors in the kitchen. 

There’s been a bit of a shift this year @297. Our mantel, which has always housed the crèche my parents gave us many years ago (all seven kids received the same one, found in a shop in New Orleans) is a little bit more dressed up. It started last weekend when I was in Evergreen Crafts in Guilford, Connecticut. The first thing I saw were these little wooden cardinal ornaments. Too small for the tree Suann and I would put up but perfect for the next thing I saw - a simple, mantle sized wooden tree. My mother loved cardinals. When a cardinal showed up at the bird feeder first thing in the morning it was always a good omen. When I got home I set up the crèche, placed the tree and shifted some other things around. Stepping back it dawned on me the mantel could become our way of celebrating those we have lost. We already had some pieces: cardinals for Bunny, a small globe Wally gifted us a few years ago; an angel the PTA gave me when Debbie passed away. For Suann’s family we have added a US Mail truck (some of her favorite memories are riding in a truck as her dad transported mail from Albany to Montreal), a toolbox for her grandfather who built his own house and a sign to Lakeview, the tavern her grandmother owned on Saratoga Lake and where Suann spent her summers. And greens. And driftwood garland. They bring it all together.

These days I’m not sure what I believe when it comes to religion but I do have unshakable faith in the power of place, the power of stories, the power of sacred objects and the power of love. 

LIFE IS RANDOM LOVE IS NOTTM