(Editor’s note: Callie is out sick this week so we are using a Christmas column she wrote many years ago. She hopes to be back soon.)
I don’t know how the tradition of the Christmas card began.
It was some years back when I began sending them out. It was the year we had that huge snow and I took a ton of pictures of Jacob and Caleb playing in the snow with their closest friend, Jon Candies. Because everyone was sending out pictures of their house in the snow I decided to make a Christmas card with this picture and send it out to all my friends.
When my son Jon saw it after returning home from LSU he said, “Um, Mom, is there something you need to tell me? That’s the wrong Jon on the Foreman Christmas card.” It has been many years and several Christmas cards and he still brings it up every year when we take our picture. And there is the real story. The picture that is almost impossible when it comes to getting five grown men to hunker down and get serious for a photo.
It was so bad last year that I just sent out the one of everyone acting like a lunatic while I sat in front of them all posing with a smile and Clay stood beside me with that horrid fake smile he uses every year that looks more like aggravation than happiness. And then the year before my sister-in -law had Clay stand behind me on a landscape timber so we could all six fit in the corner of Billie Sue’s yard only to have every one stop me and say, “Everyone knows you are taller than Clay. You don’t have to make him stand on something.” That had never been the plan, but oh well.
My Christmas card list has grown from 25 to 50 to 100 and this year 120 and I still run into people and say to myself, “You need to add them to your list.” It is as my dear and hysterical friend, Kathy, said, “For many in this busy time of year that is the gift you are sending to these people you love.”
And I said, “So, we are sending these friends a gift that is a picture of ourselves.”
And she said, “Exactly.”
She told me she sends out over 200 but that was nothing because her sister sent out over 400 this year. Then she said, “Oops, I shouldn’t have told you that because you might not get one and then you will realize out of 400 people who were considered friends you weren’t one of them.”
FYI: I did get one of her sister’s Christmas cards as I realize now that I have just told all my readers that out of 120 people who I consider to be my friend, you are not one of them. Just email me your address and I will be happy to include you next year. Or find me on Facebook and I will tell you Merry Christmas in person.
Moving on to this year’s Christmas card: I changed things up a bit because I found a pretty black card I wanted to use. I changed our family picture to black and white so that it would blend. A few days after they went out my mother-in-law called my husband to tell him she got our card but there might have been something wrong with hers because it had no color. Then my mother called me asking why the picture had no color and I told her the reason and she said, “Well, you don’t look as good with no color.” And it is all about me looking good because a picture of me is my gift to over 120 people. And the one year nobody is cutting up too terribly and no shorter people are standing on something and at least one of us has an actual natural smile because he has just said, “My yoga instructor said fake smiles are bad for the soul” I go and put my “Rejoice! For to us on this day…” card in black and white.
Oh well! Merry Christmas to Everyone! From the Foreman House to Yours!
