Christmas Card Pet Peeves

I started working on our Christmas cards earlier this week, and we've also already gotten several in the mail. Wow... I'm impressed! I'll consider myself lucky if these cards reach my friends and family by December 24.

As these cards arrive in the mail, and as I'm working on ours, it brings up some little Christmas card pet peeves of mine. These peeves mostly pertain to those ever-so-popular photo cards that we're getting more and more of every year.

DISCLAIMER! Now, before I get going on this post, if we have received (or will receive) a card from you, and the card you sent reflects one of these peeves, let me just say I'm SO HAPPY and NO LESS appreciative that you put the Fabers on your list. I love all the cards we get, simply because you thought to send us one. This is all just my humble opinion.

First of all, why is it that people send photos of only their kids? Now, I love kids, and I love kid pictures. But if you're sending me a Christmas photo, I want to see you, too! You were my friend first, before the kids came along. Did you cease to exist as a person once those babies were born? Are you no longer [insert your name here]? Should I now refer to you as [insert your child's name here]'s Mom or Dad when I send you an email or call you on the phone? (This kind of goes along with my pet peeve of people who use their kids' photos as their profile pictures on Facebook or MySpace.)

I absolutely understand the urge to plaster your child's photo all over everything. I just gave birth to a super cute, gorgeous, should-be-on-the-cover-of-every-magazine baby girl. Of course I want everyone to see pictures of her! But, she is not the representation of who I am. You won't find me on Oprah 15 years from now, a desperate housewife who has lost my identity because I've just been "Annabel's Mom" or "Chris's Wife" for all these years (at least, I hope not). Anyway, I digress. I just would love to see pictures of the whole family on Christmas cards.

My second pet peeve is about how impersonal this whole process has become. Last year, almost every photo card we received had no personal note or even a handwritten signature on it. (The few that did were from my friends that already knew this was a pet peeve of mine). Some of them even came in envelopes that had obviously been addressed by computer, not handwritten! Hello! Nice to know we're part of an assembly line. Christmas cards are the last remaining dinosaur of personal correspondence (aside from Thank You cards) that we take the time to send out anymore. If you're not even going to sign it, then it might as well be an email. I have a lot of people on my Christmas card list, too. And while I can't write a super long and personal note on every one of them, I at least extend handwritten salutations and a signature so that hopefully you know that I absolutely meant for you to receive this card.

This year, I even received a folded card that was not signed. All that room for a signature, and none could be found. It was as if I was on somebody's direct mail list. Oh well, at least I was on the list!

OK, OK, I'm off my soapbox now. I just had to rant for a little bit about that. Like I said, I do truly love the cards we've gotten because they are from dear friends and family. And I probably have had little or no impact on the way you're going to do your cards this year. But, at least now you know what I'm thinking about as I'm starting to do mine. Whether you wanted to or not.

Hope you're all having a great holiday season!
Cheers!