You’re totally right about the fundamental dynamic, but Xmas cards to make others feel bad?
Maybe not a great sentiment or activity for such a season.
Humans are humans and always have been. Some personality “foibles” have become more prevalent in the modern world, but none of us is foible-free.
This doesn’t bother me. If they can get the family together for a picture, and send me a little update if I haven’t heard from them for a while, that’s fine with me.
At one time or another I think we have all received one of those one page fake humility braggart essays, with a family photo, inside of that Christmas card.
So here, for your nostalgic enjoyment, is a parody by Humorist and motivational speaker Brad Montgomery:
Holiday Letter Update!
Well, we made it through another year. It hasn’t been bad… certainly not wonderful. Here are some highlights:
We are married, still, but just barely. (Thank God for the guest room.) If it wasn’t for that #@!%^&# verdict, and Brad’s parole officer’s — BITCH! — “strong advice” that he not set off alone again, he’d be in Vegas. We see each other as often as necessary, but when you put your mind to it, it doesn’t have to be that much. Kim is at the dog track most days, and Brad spends days at a local bar with some of his friends from the “inside.” The kids do surprisingly well as ‘latchkey’ children.
Kim’s job is… well… a job. What the heck do you want? Paradise? She hates it still, but who wouldn’t? She’d quit, but then who’d pay for necessities like cable and the Budweiser? And laughing at the funny letter the nightshift helps with the marital strife.
Brad is “between jobs” again. (Kim says: I think he oughta call a spade a spade and call himself a lazy, good-for-nothin’ piece of …. But if he wants to go with “between opportunities” I guess it’s no skin off my back.)
We tried a couple of vacations, neither of which turned out any good. We tried to go to the Holidome and Jumbo Pool Slide a couple of hundred miles from here. But after about 18 hours of fighting we just called it off, came home and rented some movies.
Then off to see Kim’s family in $#%@$$-ing Kansas. If we didn’t already feel bad enough about ourselves, Kim’s folks pretty much finished the job. Without our knowledge, the kid’s spent the whole time there in a “adult novelty and Chicago-style-pizza” shop her loser brother runs, and now have a vocabulary you wouldn’t believe. If we weren’t so buzzed on her Dad’s homebrew we would have been really ticked off. And her mom gave us all food poisoning, which at least one of us thinks was done on purpose. At least we “got away.”
Kids are doing ok, I guess. They are still in school, which sorta makes us both proud. Hey! Not everybody is gonna be at the top of the class. Having kids, as you may know, is no picnic. All I can say is that if I have to take another funny-nosed-whining-never-say-thank-you kid to another friggin’ soccer game I’m gonna put a fork in my eye.
School is bull #$@&. Thanks to the principal’s new %#$%@ Health and Fitness campaign, our oldest came home harping on our quitting our Marlboro “habit.” Habit? Heck… those little fire sticks give us joy in a world dead set against it. We’ve paid taxes for years — or at least since we were caught — and I’d ask that ^%$#@$ principal to stop brainwashing our kids against us, thank you very much. Health and fitness in school? Next thing you know they’ll be teaching them socialism and history and crap.
Seriously, we are doing well. Surprisingly well. We’re happily married… except when Brad leaves the seat up. Everybody is healthy and content. Kim is working more on writing and less in the law. Brad is still a speaker/magician/comedian. The kids, aged 5, 8 and 10 are healthy and are still cute. We don’t hate soccer (that much).
And we all enjoy having friends like you.
Yours, Kim and Brad Montgomery
Brad Montgomery
Motivational Keynote Speaker, Humorist, Fan of Humor in Christmas Letters
I like getting updated pictures.
Some of my lifelong friends live 1,700 miles away.
Sorry, I have arthritis in my hands. Typing is much easier.
hobbies are great things, they keep you out of the bars and off the golf course.
Waste of time and goodwill.
Narcissists won’t get it and others will think you are a jerk.
Sending family photos for Christmas is nothing new
I don’t know, the family photo Christmas card has been around a long time. I think it started as a photo stuck in the mass printed card. But then morphed. But it’s been there for decades. Whatever, they sent you a card. Enjoy it. Only narcissism I see here is deciding that card isn’t “good enough”.
I like a picture or two and a short letter...it is the 2plus typewritten pages giving a month by month diary of their past year I find idiotic...I basically consider it junk mail.
Well, the personalized family photo sent out as a Christmas Card is nothing new. We have been doing it for over 20 years.
I hope the activity isn’t narcissistic.
There is a practical reason for the laser labels, the rubber stamp return address, and the Christmas letter with the family photo.
That reason is the fact that we MOVE ALL OVER THE PLACE and our family and friends are FAR AWAY. Christmas is a great time to provide an update to family and friends, provide updated contact information, etc. I have gotten thank you notes from people who appreciate my updates, as family members grow up, etc. I do admit that in downer years (nothing but bad news) I just send a regular nativity scene with a hand written line or two in the card.
This isn’t particularly new. What is newer is people doing the same thing through e-mail or social media sites and foregoing the physical media altogether. Not new, but expanding, are people who send nothing because email, texts and social media are ongoing, or because they just don’t get around to it.
Our Christmas card list is 60+, we get about 1/3rd response combined with a smattering of emails or phone calls. My wife LOVES seeing the narcissistic pictures of aging but growing families of our friends in other parts of the country. I like getting the occasional witty letter.
I’d like to think our response is a practical one to the fact of our moving, and our friends being scattered as well, but still keep the physical touch.
Like many of our Christmas traditions, the Christmas Card comes from Victorian England. Here’s a video from the Victoria and Albert Museum that shows some of the really extravagant, ingenious cards from the early days:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdULP-VYuXk
