Christmas card resolution !!
I am not a Christmas card sending girl. Along with all the other Pinterest-wife duties I fail at, this is one.
I respect the h-e-l-l out of families that send Christmas cards. I will admit I feel like you are waving your well-preparedness Christmas card remembering perfection in my face wrapped in a box of guilt. At some point in life, I did strive to be the type of human that remembers such delicate things. And just like we all promise ourselves we will actually use the gym membership we’ve paid for for five years and used three times, I still tell myself one day I will be the Christmas card sending type.
Lies.
But here we are, and I am not one of those girls. We sent out a Christmas card once. It did not arrive to our loved ones homes until Valentine’s Day. And after that, I called it quits.
However, we receive the MOST amazing Christmas cards in the entire universe. This is not a joke. In 2016, we got a Christmas card iPad that played a remade Home Alone movie but with the members of their family.
I did not throw that one away. It still sits on my shelf at Christmas because if there’s anything more tricky than figuring out life, it’s out what to do with well thought out Christmas cards.
How freaking amazing are my friends. All of them send Christmas cards. Which adds an extra layer of Grinchy Christmas guilt.
I'm just not sure how anyone how gets matching or fancy outfits, schedules a Photographer, picks a location, orders prints, signs their name correctly, doesn’t leave out a child or a pet, or an adventure around the world, addresses cards (BEYOND), puts stamps on cards, puts cards in the mail, all before December 21st. It would take me seven months to do all of that.
Do you people start planning your Christmas card sending in May?!
I can’t.
Please explain this Tom foolery.
But please don’t stop sending me your Christmas cards. Please don’t take my non-Christmas card sending negligence as a sign that I’m ungrateful or unwanting.
I love the freaking Christmas cards. But I’ll also will not be offended if you saved a few trees and dollars and just posted a picture online and tagged me.
That would be enough for me. The tagging is key.
I’m selfless like that.
Every year I feel so much shame about not being a Christmas card sender, and every year I pitch such a fit that no one reminded me in May to get started on sending my Christmas cards that I actually wonder who my friends are ?!
Is there a Facebook group you can add me to that reminds adults to do fancy and cool Adulty things?
I accept.
But because I’m sophisticated and a problem solver, and a shame diminisher, I came up with a resolution for all you other Christmas card forgetters like me.
I like words. I love them. I devour them. So so much. And you do too if you read this very wordy blog.
Words are life giving, and powerful, and in a way Christmas cards don’t do it for me because there words are too Hallmarked, and not meaningful. And I feel like any picture I’d use for a Christmas card is already on Facebook, and Instagram.
So, I’m one-up-ing your Christmas cards and I will be writing CHRISTMAS LETTERS!!
This Christmas, my New Years resolution (yep, you read that right) is to send Christmas letters.
These letters will express my undying love for you in all the words I can muster.
And to give myself some grace, please don’t expect these Christmas letters at, around, or before Christmas.
Or the New Year.
I’m not that special.
I have way too many friends (I have four) to write that many letters before Christmas.
Good Lord.
And this is a beautiful way to still be in the club, for all of us who find it extremely difficult to be an adult AND remember Christmas cards. This way, the pressure is off. Just send love notes to the people you love and call it a Christmas letter. It can be an email, a hand written letter (my choice), or heck, it can even be a text.
Post it on Facebook and tag your friends and call it a win. Because here’s why.
It’s cheaper
It’s more meaningful
It’s cheaper
And so much of creating is dying in our world today. We are consuming at alarming rates. And reproducing (things not babes) junk and what we need is to not let our art, and our creativity die. I need to tell you that adults with hobbies, with free time to express, explore, create, get lost, get found in boredom, in imagination, and in creativity are super humans and YOU need that in your life.
This blog is first a weekly (who am I kidding) love letter to myself, and second my love offering to you, kind reader.
Words are important and I refuse to let them get lost in a millennial society. Regardless of how pretty it looks, how “good” it is, and much effort it takes. AND especially not how much affirmation we revive for our art, that can never be the reason.
It is the mountain I’m willing to die on. Our art, my art, your art is the very gift you’re meant to offer up. To sacrifice.
And isn’t that what Christmas is all about?
Sharing your art, your love, your gifts with the people you love because of the One that loves you.
Mmmm, that’s a good word.
IT IS IMPORTANT. And so are you.
Love
BAR