Christmas Cards

Every year we try to get Christmas cards out. Every year I question my sanity and wonder why I even bother. It always starts with finding a picture of the whole family. Finding the perfect family picture is harder than keeping up on laundry for 9 people. Which is why I'm using the same picture as I have on my blog. Then we have my next favorite thing which is ordering the cards on line. I never order anything on line. That would be my hubby's job, not mine!! Although once a year I order my Christmas cards. Then I have to find my Christmas list, which I always loose. (I think it's with all my missing left socks.) So I always have to start all over again making up a new list. Then the dreaded post office.  This is where in years past I give up.  I have this fear of the post office which I won't even get into today.

This year I had the family picture already, which I was very excited about. I got 20 free Christmas cards when we got our family picture taken. I would have had to take out a second mortgage on my house to order more, because of how expensive they were. So I ordered more cards on the internet (early in the season I might add) and went to the store the next day to pick up my cards. When I got to the store to pick it up and they handed me my order, I wondered why they handed me a large stack of humongous envelopes. So I looked at my pictures to discover instead of printing me 30 small Christmas cards, they printed me 30 life-size Christmas cards. I told them this isn't what I ordered. They told me they don't even have the size I ordered. I questioned why they had it as an option? That's when the conversation became very one sided. I was asking questions and the nice lady behind the counter just stared at me like I was insane for not wanting to send a poster size Christmas card to people I haven’t seen in 10 years. I tried to explain I couldn't send a Christmas card that would take up the whole fridge, but the lady just laughed and said I was funny.  That's really not the response I was looking for.  She also added that's the size she wanted to send out.  After talking to several employee’s in the store, it came down to I could make whole new Christmas cards at a whole new store or send out our bigger than life cards. I did find it funny when I saw a friend from my neighborhood there who had the same problem and when the nice lady behind the counter saw me, now talking to another costumer, the look on her face was, oh no she is starting to stalk random customers as they are leaving and she might form a lynch mob. The sigh of relief followed by the laughing when I told her I knew the other costumer told me I was psychic and I had read her thoughts correctly.

Next I had a vision of what you’d all be doing when you saw the cards come in the mail. The mail carrier would have to bring it up to your door because it was too big to fit in your box and you’d open it thinking it was the Justin Beaver Bieber poster you ordered for you pre-teen daughter to discover it was my Christmas Card. After you remember who I am and how you know me, you’d question why I felt I was so important as to send you a picture of my family that was larger than your tree. Then you might crack jokes like you might have an enormous sized family but your Christmas cards don’t need to match.

So now with only a few days before Christmas, I have decided to mail them. I do hope they don't cost more money, and I hope I can survive the post office. When you get a Christmas card from me this year and it is bigger than your own framed family photo on your wall, you can use it in a multiple of ways. Cover your entire fridge, hide large holes you might have in your wall, laminate it and use it as place mat, a dart board, line your bird cage, cut it up and make your own puzzle or throw it away. In any case, you’ll know we love you tons, and we hope you have a very Merry Christmas, and I’m sorry if it so big that it gives you nightmares.