an e-card

Happy holidays 2006/7 to everyone who reads this! Paper cards are going out tomorrow, probably too late for Xmas: if you want a cheerful holiday card shortly after Xmas, leave a comment-- I have about 10 left over because I needed an odd number and had to buy either too many or too few. And really you can never have too many.
(I'll screen comments so nobody but me will know your top-secret RL address!) I know many of you have already posted your addresses, and I promised to do this earlier, and I didn't, and I just didn't write down people's addresses, so I'm lost and confused. But that's usual.

Christmas 2006 This would've been our Christmas card if I'd been organized enough. This is our actual front porch, with Christmas decorations, with actual snow, and that is actually Dave in our actual kitchen making our actual dinner. :) I'm big on authenticity this year, apparently.

One thing about the photo which is too bad is that it doesn't show that about 1/4 of the lights blink. Oh yes, our neighbors must all love us. We're the nicest yard on the block, we are.

cards

Slogging through holiday cards. I have to admit, I love holiday cards. I never did, but in the last two years have realized the point of them: it gives you an excuse to rekindle any correspondence, no matter how pathetically lapsed, and gives you a deadline as well, and gives you something to say even if you can't think of anything really heartfelt or unique or personable.
I have learned, and this is I think some part of growing up, to realize this-- I have learned that if you wait until you have the perfect thing to say, you will most likely never say anything at all. And so I am writing to at least two people I haven't remembered to speak to in ten years, just because I have their addresses and I have cute greeting cards with buffaloes on them and, if nothing else, I can say, Hi, happy holidays, best wishes for the new year, and this is my new address. How are you?
It is a recognition that this isn't a perfect world, it's all we have, and sometimes we forget to write letters for a decade, but that doesn't mean we've forgotten each other. (In both cases, they are adults who were important to me when I was a teenager, and with whom I haven't entirely lost touch, I've just... never remembered to write them.)

But writing holiday cards is kind of a slog. I hit the wall a couple times today, staring numbly at the cards and thinking that perhaps I had tinfoil that needed chewing. The problem mostly solved itself, first through a judicious application of shuffling through the pile to find a card to someone to whom I knew just what to say, and then later through a judicious application of OK I have to go to work now which means I have to take a six-hour break.
So just now I sat at the table and wrote cards while Z addressed envelopes and signed cards I'd written. He's very much of the If You Don't Have Anything Witty And Individually Significant To Say Then Why Bother Saying Anything At All school of thought, and that means that it takes him about six hours to write a simple birthday card. (Needless to say, I've held onto and still reread every postcard he's ever sent me-- because they're worth rereading, and also because they're rare.) It doesn't bother me-- I'll write the damn things as long as he reads them over and signs them. So it was actually a pleasant and relatively harmonious evening. Z and I do amuse one another quite a lot. If I do say so myself.