There is a special category of card I get every year. It’s the type whose missives are packed with a year’s worth of information and a picture all-in-one. Included in these twelve-month sum-ups are trips, surgeries, house remodeling projects, and usually, how the year went for their family pet as well. Sometimes, it is difficult to tell which figure in the photo is the animal or…is it a family member that just needs a bath and a good shave? In one card I received, there was tall, narrowness, a shadow of a figure that I thought was the bearded father, but who, upon closer examination, was an Irish wolfhound. The skinny dog was squashed between two college sons, beer mugs in hand and home for the holidays, who looked like they had not changed their clothes in a month. Below that there was a description of how the dog had lost its sight in one eye over the course of the year, and now, sadly, bumped into walls as it walked. This condition really seemed more descriptive of the two returning sons, who seemed barely able to stand upright for the Christmas Family photo.
While all of this is part of the unexpected fun we enjoy around the holidays, and God knows we all need our share of jolly holly-ness, some of the greeting cards I receive are apparently printed on home printers using an inferior ink that does not hold up so well in the mail, whose letters are smeared and blotty. These cards make me question the family’s integrity as they arrive with only a few words left that are legible – with questionable phrases like, “probably will be released in a couple of months,” or “due to mechanical failure after takeoff.”
On one card, in explaining the events of their last year on their card, the mother made this comment about their pet snake, a ten-foot boa constrictor named Sly, “who escaped from its cage and unfortunately could not be found in time for the Christmas family photo.” That might have gone over as just a passing comment except there were two toddlers in the picture. Even that could have gone unnoticed, but the father had handwritten this interesting tidbit of information beneath his two children: “Don’t worry friends! When our snake gets hungry enough, it’ll find us.”
Gulp.
I’m always taken aback by those cards that are really disguised as a business proposition. This year, I received a card from a heating and air company who I had asked for quote from twenty-five years ago. The photo was of a fine-looking family with twelve, (twelve!) children, all dressed cleverly in somewhat grimy, dust covered coveralls holding typical furnace tools, wrenches, filters and the like. The father was holding some sort of rescue dog, an attempt, I think, to give some normalcy to the photo. I took out my magnifying glass, because I do that sort of thing, and upon closer inspection, saw that the dog was wearing a knitted sweater bearing the furnace company’s logo, “Bringing on the Heat,” as slogan I thought entirely inappropriate for a dog, or for a family of twelve.
One year, I tried my hand at one of these all-inclusive cards, except I thought I’d be clever and do a kind of Saturday Night Live version, thinking that the readers would see my parody as humorous or satirical or ironic or possible even genius. I didn’t hear back from any of the people I sent it to – for several years actually – except my neighbor across the street who thought I needed to have my head examined, and suggested I seek medical attention in the New Year, which would be in March since most of the medical community in this area goes to Florida for the winter. Just to be on the safe side, I made that appointment as suggested however, included my medical results in the greeting card I sent out the next year at Christmas, with a QR code that allowed you scroll through the MyChart whose password I can never remember.
I thought I’d learned my lesson after sending that card out and made a private vow to go into the new year being less tacky, perhaps even more classy in my outward manner, give my character some major or minor tweaking, leave out some of the cynicism and so on. I started off by buying some tickets to an NFL game and took my family up to Indianapolis to see the Colts play the Tennessee Titans, which was great fun. It was a couple of days before Christmas and accordingly, the football game was charged with skits and entertaining attempts at audience participation with hardly a dull moment with cannons firing off confetti, or Colts cheerleaders doing flips and cartwheels as they stampeded down the sidelines.
There were some sixty thousand people in the stadium, yet everyone was behaving, enjoying the Colts trouncing the Titans. Laughter was effervescing from every corner. My grandson and I had on ridiculous hats and tried to get on national television by doing some form of the “Gritty,” –all of which was adding up to a memorable outing by anyone’s standards. Of course, on one end of the field, a mammoth TV screen kept a running show of its own going, prompts that told us when to cheer, replays of touchdowns with fireworks, and interviews with the players. I had almost settled into my seat for along winter’s nap, popcorn in hand, feeling that life was complete and that I had reached some imaginary pinnacle in Lucas Stadium, when the screen began showing hilarious pictures of awkward family photos at Christmas time.
We’ve all seen these, of course, they are the same group of pictures we get every year from our friends on the cards I was talking about earlier. One family, for example had about forty- five family members, who were all laying on top of each other, and who had decided to place all the women on the bottom in a sort of epic failed attempt to separate the two sexes. Then, a few pictures later a photo appeared on the big screen of a family whose members had climbed a thousand-foot Ponderosa pine and were standing on branches at various altitudes, with smiles that looked like they might never see each other again.
Still, I was jazzed and laughing like a hyena on a caffeine high until a picture flashed up on the screen of a family, each one dressed in identical striped pajamas. In fact, there were so many stripes flashing across the screen that it had the effect of making everyone slightly dizzy while looking at the mesmerizing pattern of ridiculous red and green crisscrossing lines. In fact, most of the stadium audience were forced to turn away from the optics just to give their eyes a rest, which created a moment of unusual silence. It was only for a split second, but it was just long enough to give my grandson time to yell out, “Hey, those are OUR pajamas!”
Which was true. Those very pajamas had succeeded in quieting sixty thousand fans, most of whom were looking at us now and trying to figure out how one family could be so unbelievable insensitive to their own appearance.
As I sat trying to make myself as small as possible, putting my jacket over my head and shushing my grandson, I felt the true nature of our family had been revealed to the entire NFL audience in attendance. At the same time, I could feel the chemistry in my body reduced to sub-atomic particles and knew some of the distinctive chromosomes of our family were being filtered out and destroyed, ones like the DNA that gives me my double chin from my great, great grandfather, and the manner in which I mispronounce our first president as Worshington instead of Washington.
If it were not for the final image of the game, a touching moment when the players gathered at midfield to pray, I might have branded myself as part of a family whose pj’s agitated an entire stadium audience at a nationally televised football game. However, a circle of football giants each took a knee, held hands and began praying audibly. I heard God come into the middle of them and speak using words like family, and fellowship, sportsmanship, and love and I heard the word Emanual. Men took off their helmets who, only moments before had been on different teams and had knocked each other down and some, even penalized for unsportsmanlike conduct.
Their heads were bowed and they were all praying and recognizing the blessing that God’s son brought to us by the birth of his son on Christmas. I heard them praying for those who didn’t know about Jesus, and for them to take a knee and ask for Him to come into their hearts today. The circle of players were putting all of their brilliant passes and interceptions and their runs and endzone dances aside, and putting on a different uniform, one of humility, and there was nothing – nothing – awkward about it.