Okay, well they aren’t really Xmas cards, they are ‘holiday’ cards. I never get the ones that say “merry christmas” on them or anything religious like that. And, I always want to get the Unicef ones but they are so damned expensive and really, who reads Xmas cards anyway? Nobody. If you send me an Xmas card I will think its pretty nice but unless its got some interesting bit of gossip in there, I probably won’t read it. And, you’ve probably not written anything in it worth reading anyway. You get them and put them on your mantle or whatever and then you collect a bunch and say “hey, look how many people like me. look how many people think i’m excellent.” Unless its from someone you haven’t heard from in a long time in which case you will look at it for like a minute and say “oh, look at this, how nice that they thought of me.” And then you will put it up on your mantle.

But really, its not about you. The reason why people send out Xmas cards is because it makes them feel like a grownup. I’m convinced of this. Getting a job is grown up, you say. No, any 16 year old (or 14 year old with working papers) can get a job. Well, I own my own house! That makes me a grownup. I’m sorry, but it doesn’t. Anyone with some cash can own a house. In fact, snoopy has a house, so phhhtt. Seriously, sending out Xmas cards is the most adult thing I do. The most grown up thing I have ever done. More adult than saving people from decades in state prison. More adult than deciding if I’m going to try IVF or adopt if I can’t get pregnant. More adult than not being carded at the liquor store.

So here’s what I do: I flip through my address book and I write the same insipid thing on every card “With love, joy and happiness for the new year” That’s it. And then I address it. I go through each and every page of my grown up address book and send them to every single person in that book. Even people I haven’t spoken to in forever, just because I know they will say “oh, how nice that they thought of me” and I feel very grown up about the whole thing. I feel like a truly mature person as I carry the stack to the post office and drop them off. I think the dude at the post office is looking at the stack and saying “wow, that woman sure does know a lot of people in a lot of far away places all over the world, she must be really cool and sophisticated. And boy, does she have her shit together to get all of these out well before Xmas!” I love the idea that there are losers out there with kids and real jobs and houses that don’t get you winded walking to but who cannot get their shit together enough to send out Xmas cards. I think about my in-laws getting theirs from us and saying “wow, those kids who saved up all that money and rented out their lovely house with the backyard and garage and left their great jobs to move to Baltimore and live in a third floor walkup with no employment in sight do have their shit together, don’t they?”

And, that, my friends, is why I send out Xmas cards, even though I am not an Xtian.