Holiday Card Count

Sure they are still arriving. Some came yesterday and some will probably come today (kind of unfair that Christmas Eve was a Sunday, huh?) and those professing to acknowledge only the new year, well, they have until well into January. Still, I thought a wrap-up was in order.

I didn't count the 'e-mail only' missives. I counted everything else I didn't lose track of around the house. There was only one that kind of puzzled me with that 'hmmm...what is this signature, who sent this?" now that the card and envelope were separated.

For the record, I counted an even 100. About twenty were from businesses or charities seeking out continued support. Ten consisted of or included those famous mass mailing family letters. (Love 'em. You folks are so busy and interesting. Sorry about the car wrecks and dead aunts and stuff. Cheers to the kids graduating and doing eight sports and all. Wow! Lots of exotic trips. Do all you people ski?!!) Twenty-nine included a hand-written note of some substance (not just a signature or a 'happy holidays' but you know something that indicated the card was to us). Thirty consisted of or included a family photo...sometimes just the kids, sometimes the adults, too. Pets appeared on a few (I didn't put a column in the database for that). I counted only nine that were really overtly religious. "Merry Christmas" didn't qualify. I was pretty strict on that. I counted a manger scenes and bible verses or repeated references to God. Only nine. I received no cards that acknowledged Hannukah although a few were from Jews who wished everyone some generic seasonal greeting as did most of those with Christian beliefs or (perhaps) none at all.

Only two cards were handmade and those were produced on the computer. I didn't count store-printed custom cards as handmade or the ones you sent off to Snapfish or whatever. Yeah, I did that. Not hand made unless you at least printed them on your own inkjet, cursing when a cartridge ran dry at the last minute.

On five cards the a primary message was Peace although this message was subtly conveyed in others.

As to the decoration (apart from or in addition to the thirty family photos) we had abstract trees, an African elephant (that one was from Cape Town so...fair enough), four principally involved angels (and, no, I didn't count them as overtly religious...go figure), one had a NY-looking apartment building and bare tree in the snow (from a Jew who lives Upper East Side so, yeah), one featured a basketball team in orange Santa-style hats, one featured primarily bells.

I received two (only) that were completely identical. They featured a blooming cactus drawing by a young cancer patient. Produced by M.D. Anderson. One of the senders is there now and we've just received a most hopeful call about the bone marrow transplant success. Yeah. Weird that we got two of those. We also got another kid's drawing from that series.

Two cards featured cowboy boots as I mentioned earlier in this boring blog. One card had a cat with a candy cane tail. You'd have to see it. We got four that were predominately Christmas trees (besides the abstract mentioned above). One was drawn by the cancer patient, as mentioned. One tree was decorated from green sequins.

Snow and snowmen were on a lot of the cards in some form. And most of the snow cards were from places that haven't seen a flake this year as opposed to, say, from my relatives and friends in Colorado where multiple feet have fallen. Have you heard of snowmen angels? One card had a snow scene painted by Claude Monet. There was a church in one of the snow scenes but, no, I didn't count it as religious. Quote the bible or trot out baby Jesus or a star of David. I'm strict. One was a picture of a house in a Houston suburb. With snow. We always snap pictures of our houses down here if it ever snows.

One card featured a dog and a nutcracker and dirt. Dirt where a young couple hopes to build their first home.

Five featured mostly doves. Doves for peace, you know. Lots of peaceful thoughts.

Simple greenery or holly was featured on six cards. One featured a Japanese panel. Six or so relied just on the family photo for decor.

One from a downtown high rise builder featured their logo with a tree on top and language alluding to the tradition of topping out a high rise. They have a few dozen stories to go. Hope they make it in 2007.

Naturally there were longhorns. This is Texas and Austin, home of the UT Longhorns.

One card, only one, featured a manger scene with the baby Jesus.

One card featured ornaments. One a paintbrush carrying paint in the image of the Texas flag.

One had the word peace with calligraphy and trees.

One had Peanuts characters doing Christmas.

One had a photo of a bear among trees.

One had a photo with cactus in the background.

Four had poinsettias necessitating me looking up the spelling.

One card featured a quilt. Not a holiday theme quilt either.

A rabbit was the main character on one and a reindeer on another.

Santa appeared on eight...with Artic animals, on the beach, with a cat who was stealing his milk and cookies, etc.

One card had a tree with birds, dogs around it, tennis balls and rackets and PEACE imbossed into the paper. I didn't really get that one exactly.

One had a tree background with a vintage photo of old folks imbibing.

There were three wreaths. One was decorated with birds which were identified. That one was from some serious bird watchers.

My favorite card was unique in featuring a flame and fireplace. Yule log? Whatever. On a small card there was a white layer on the front revealing yellow and orange behind it in a flame (but vaguely dove-like in one case) shapes and inside a pop-up of a yule log on andirons. It's just clever and different. I may keep it.

Because, yes, I'll probably have to throw away most of these. I used to save Christmas cards, at least for a year or two and then sort through them and weed them down. I hate tossing all your letters, hand-written notes (!), photos of your children. But really after a few years it would be several cubic feet of stuff. To keep. So I'll sift through them again in a week or two and have to let a lot of them go. I'm keeping the pop-up fireplace in my decoration box, though. And I think I'll save that one of blooming cactus with my friend's silly poem inside about her recovery.