I don't like getting them from other people, because it makes me feel guilty about not sending any.
My grandmother sent me a particularly saucy card that features an image of Bettie Page bearing herself. The Page image appears to be from a print that said grandmother painted and is selling as a greeting card. I find this hilariously odd.
I have sent no cards (but per a previous thread will send thank-you cards for any and all gifts, thankyouverymuch).
Never know what to do with them. Feel bad throwing them out but the ones that are family pictures often have snowflakes and season's greetings and are usually not pictures I'd keep otherwise. A friend just told me "send me your address if you like getting holiday cards" and for once I just said "actually, I'm pretty indifferent to them."
an image of Bettie Page bearing herself
Like, aloft? Sort of an Escher pin-up?
4: Er, bare herself? I'm not sure of which is correct. She's showing her breast.
Bearing herself would be some kind of recursive reproduction, which could get pretty scary.
Sent cards out (and received) for, oh, forty years and then stopped as the geographic closeness dissipated and extended WWII generation...became absent. The husband from the last couple of that generation just went, and the survivor is pretty broken.
I still get a few (and wedding notices) from 4th or 5th generation kids (My cousins' children, and fuck, their children) with nostalgia for traditional values.
We send out some. I like getting them, but the part of sending them that I get hung up on is my conviction that I have to write something personal and interesting on each one. I don't have to, really, but it bothers me not to, and so I spend a lot more time agonizing over each card before breaking down and writing something vague and general.
My mom has sent them out for years, but she never gets around to it until January. I understand how she's busy with work during December, but I do sort of feel like it's missing the point a bit.
Sent out 40 yesterday. I wouldn't, left to myself, but with some people it's basically all the contact we have left, and we don't want to lose touch entirely. With others, you know they're going to send you one, so you get your retaliation in first.
I think it's a crappy custom really. Prince Albert's fault, like so much else.
We are sending them for the first time this year. I'm not entirely sure why. Making the card was fun enough, but deciding who receives one is as bad as planning a wedding.
I never send out holiday cards. You're supposed to describe what you've been doing for the past year and I do nothing but work. No one wants to read about how I beat my billable requirement by 200 hours. Maybe I'll send them out after I have kids so I can write about the amazing things that they do.
I've always been daunted by the need to both (a) have friends and (b) know their mailing address.
14: You could bring back eCards, Halford. 'Cause those weren't the most annoying thing ever. Nope.
We send them out, with a picture of our children in Santa hats. We do this as a service to humanity, because our children are unusually delightful and adorable. This wouldn't work for everyone.
I should be writing mine right now.
Every few years my mom will send them, mostly to update people we don't see often on what's been going on with our lives. She doesn't really like to, though, and usually doesn't. She does still send me eCards on various occasions, though.
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Digby links to a short photo essay.
"Hell is Real"?
"Following Glenn Back into the Heartland"?
"Ghost of Christmas Future"?
or
Death of the Liberal Class? ...which is the book I am currently reading, and need to get back to. Though God only knows why.
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I get hung up on is my conviction that I have to write something personal and interesting on each one.
This is my problem. It seems wrong to send out a card with nothing but a signature. The acceptable exceptions aren't available to me: photos of kids, because I really do like seeing them grow up (even while part of me resents the show-offy, "Look! We have kids!!" vibe) and those exceptionally rare people who write interesting and entertaining "Dear Friends" letters.
The photo essay linked in 21 is quite something. I'm sure that the unemployed residents respect Glenn Beck for pricing tickets to his show out of their reach so that they have something to strive for.
I send out a diminishing number of cards each year - I'm sure not that long ago I was doing about 60 a year, but I wrote mine this morning for all but family, and it was less than 20. Just normal cards though, not photos of us or anything. Some I write a couple of lines in, most I don't bother. The kids can make the family ones. Actually, I found 3 this week - to my FIL, MIL and grandFIL, from last year. I'm assuming that I didn't write anything 2009esque in them (because I don't usually write anything in family ones) so plan to get round to handing them over this year.
23:That laid off worker in Wilmington who volunteers at the homeless shelter sees your despite, Kraab. He may not be sure of Beck, but he understands you.
This is exactly what Hedges is talking about.
Hedges and Chomsky have more empathy for Joe Stack than they do for you.
Hedges met a refugee from Nazi Germany way way back. That refugee said that he felt the nation had a "yearning for fascism" long before fascism...aww, what's the use.
They revel in and admire someone like Vaclav Havel. Chomsky is contemptuous of Havel. Chomsky embraces the Julien Benda view of the world. There are two sets of principles. They are the principles of power and privilege and the principles of truth and justice. If you pursue truth and justice, it will always mean a diminution of power and privilege. If you pursue power and privilege it will always be at the expense of truth and justice. Benda says that the credo of any true intellectual has to be, as Christ said, "My kingdom is not of this world." Chomsky exposes the pretenses of those who claim to be the bearers of truth and justice. He shows that in fact these intellectuals are the bearers of power and privilege and all the evil that attends it.
young yoyo asked below if it is a sin to troll. yoyo, it is a sin not to troll.
I've linked this ecard-themed Dinosaur Comic before, but that's because it's awesome.
Hedges and Chomsky have more empathy for Joe Stack than they do for you.
I'm not familiar with Hedges, and I find Chomsky pretty despicable, but is Chomsky really this much of an asshole? Maybe!
22 gets it right. (I've previously registered my resentment at holiday cards/letters in a tone that now embarrasses me, somewhere in the archives.)
Come to think of it, 14 gets it right as well.
26: Ryan North has since begun making actual cards based on that premise.
Oh, fantastic. I remember seeing that he was planning on it.
To get heartfelt for a second, the thing I cherish most about the holiday season is NACHOS! YAY!!!
Haven't sent them for years, but invariably feel guilty about it. I hate the generic "Dear Friends" letters -- if anyone truly gave a crap what I've been up to this year, presumably they've called or emailed a few times to catch up. Just signing seems lame, though, and I am never organized enough to do a holiday photo of Rory (as if she'd even sit for one!). But! An awesome friend took some awesome (and awesomely silly in many cases) non-holiday-themed portraits of Rory a month ago, so I may try to get some cards out just to show those off.
I like getting Christmas cards. I think virtually everyone who knows me understands that that's not the sort of thing I would do, so I don't feel bad about not reciprocating.
I like getting Christmas/Year-end wrap-up letters too, although sometimes it seems silly, as when people with whom you are not only close friends, but also FB friends, send them, rehashing all of the stuff you knew about when it happened.
Just to be a jerk, I should probably start sending one of those year-end letters in July, and claim that I have a July 1st-June 30th fiscal year. Which I don't.
I too seem to like getting Christmas cards, even though I basically never send them these days. I should stop that. None of this generic mass write-up thingy, though: that's for the birds, unless, I suppose, you're full-up with family and, er, whatnot.
unless, I suppose, you're full-up with family and, er, whatnot.
Titus won't be happy with a form letter, but I don't think I'll worry about that.
I've linked this ecard-themed Dinosaur Comic before, but that's because it's awesome.
Actually that's one of the few card-themed dino comics that isn't an ecard-themed dino comic.
Sure, we send out Christmas cards every year. We do about 150 a year, mostly to friends and family but some to a selected number of co-workers. As long as you minimize the amount of stress inherent in arranging Christmas-y photos, it's not that bad.
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ARG EXTREME STRESS ACK
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(Sorry, I just needed to do that somewhere.)
38.1: on the other hand, that job sucks anyhow.
39: Thanks, although in the grand scheme of things this shouldn't be a big deal and I should learn to chill out. (Wine is helping.) I'm sure it'll resolve itself in a day or two.
40: That's semi-on-target, and oh how I wish I could whine at greater length in a pseudonymity-preserving way, though for the sake of all of you it's good that I can't.
Whine to me in e-mail! I'll be discreet, and merely privately lord my superior inside knowledge over everybody else.
Send a group email. I'd be amused.
No, no. That's no good. Just tell me.
What makes you all think he hasn't told me alrleady? Maybe I just know not to brag about it.
It's because I spelled "already" wrong, isn't it? Damn.
We do about 150 a year, mostly to friends and family but some to a selected number of co-workers.
Yeah, with only 150 on your list, I can certainly see how you'd have to be somewhat selective.
(Seriously, in order to come up with 150, I think I'd have to start trawling the local homeless shelters and sending out cards to persons of no fixed address. Well, unless I wanted to send cards to my approximately 999 cousins, of course, a few of whom, come to think of it, are of no fixed address. But actually, no, I guess I'd rather not do that).
I hate those annual Christmas letters that are meant to function as advertisements for the fabulousness of a given family. It's as though they're trying to "brand" themselves, and they always the omit the grisly details about drug addictions and teen pregnancies. Which only shows how behind the times they are, really, since nowadays the only way to get a reality TV show (and/or, perhaps, to run for President) is to have a son in rehab or a daughter on the outs with her child's baby daddy.
in order to come up with 150
NCP's wife runs a company with 300+ employees and many clients, so that probably helps.
Yeah, with only 150 on your list, I can certainly see how you'd have to be somewhat selective.
Can't be that difficult, surely? I'm FB friends with about 250 people, and there must be at least 150 on there that I could send cards too if I wanted. Plus family on both sides, plus neighbours and other local acquaintances, plus C's work colleagues ...
"send cards too"? Christ. Can I go back to bed?
This guy has been collecting Christmas letters for years. He's done a book too.
re: 52
Yeah, I'm not one of those life and soul of the party types with tons of close friends, in fact I'm fairly asocial, but I'd bet if I trawled through my Facebook list, and sent to the people who work near me or with me in some way [and who might reasonably send a card to me], I'd easily get over 150. I only _actually_ send a dozen or two, but that's because I'm a scroogey grump.
Happy belated Hanukkah, everyone! You all light up my life so very much.
58: He's decided to play basketball for the Miami Heat.
57: You don't need to announce that.