Christmas Cards

One year, I was looking for a new idea for our family Christmas card. You know the routine: you try photo cards, you try Christmas letters, you try the unusual to cause a raised eyebrow and a smile from all those who receive your card. Craft magazines used to be full of ideas. Some used grasses and twigs, others used rubber stamps and glitter, still others used little dabs of paint. Gary had an uncle who painted small masterpieces in oil and signed them as Christmas cards. As I write this, I can look up at a small bookcase near me that displays four of his pieces of art. Who can top that?

Long before I had met Gary's Uncle Chuck or knew of his oil painting talents, I had the bright idea of letting my three children make our Christmas cards one year. They were all in lower elementary grades or I couldn't have convinced them to spend the better part of a month doing such a thing.

I always save the Christmas cards I receive from year to year. They're useful for unique gift tags, tree ornaments and reminders of what people wrote in their last card so I don't ask a dumb question in the card I send the following year. So, pulling out four or five years' cards, I let Sarah, Matt, and Rachel select what they thought were really pretty or interesting card designs to copy. This was no small task as I had about two hundred cards to look over and each child had to complete a minimum of twenty cards.

Now, in my own defense, I was not a task master, nor did I expect small children to whip out twenty cards in one afternoon. I started the project before Thanksgiving with a deadline of December 10. I had new crayons and colored pencils and water color paints and good sturdy art paper for the cards. I had colorful Christmas stickers for the envelopes which could also be colored or painted as per each child's whim. I thought it would be a fun way to allow my children to be a real part of the Christmas card ritual.

It was interesting to see which cards appealed to which child. Sarah liked the ornate and traditional garlands, Christmas trees, bells, etc. Matt chose winter landscapes and snowy scenes. And Rachel liked people and animals and, of course, Santa. Once they had their model cards in tow, they set into the task like real professionals. I was surprised at the detail and certainly the dedication that went into their cards. There were snowy villages, elegant trees and doorways, groups of carolers, and Santas. Over the next few weeks, making Christmas cards ceased to be a task and became a much anticipated recreation that we all enjoyed. I kept my slave artists well stocked with cocoa and cookies.

I was proud of them. These three had risen to the occaission and had exceeded my original hopes for the project. I saw artistic talent and creativity being expressed at my own kitchen table, and I often wondered how these same talents would be used as the years passed after my three children were no longer children.

As the project neared completion, I noticed that each had left a card or two that was particulary detailed or difficult to copy for last. I explained that if something was too hard to draw, they should dig through the pile of sample cards for another. Not these three. They stoically pushed forward.

The day came for the unveiling of their project. One by one, we oohed and ahed over the cards. They were beautiful, and in most cases, almost exact copies of some really fine artwork. They even wrote in feau caligraphy the sentiments that were in some of the sample cards or a variation of their own choosing. To say that I was overwhelmed with their abilities, cheerful attitudes, and determination to complete a long project was an understatement. I had promised them a Burger King feast with Aunt Mary when they finished all of their cards, and they were excited about that and the fact that afterwards we would drive around town to see the Christmas lights and then go to see Santa.

One by one we all looked at each card. We complimented. We asked questions. Sometimes one of the children would hold up the original and their artwork to show the similarities. But there is one card that to this day I can clearly see and that still brings a smile to my face. It was one by Rachel, the youngest. Her favorite card, and one of the hardest to draw so she left it for last, was a lovely old-fashioned embossed card showing a large red velvet high heeled slipper with a wide cuff of white fur around the shoe opening. Sitting inside the slipper was a white angora cat with a little pug nose and a smile that you'll never see on the face of a real live cat.

She wanted to make it a religious card, she explained. But there was nothing religious about a cat. This dilemma caused her to really think. She wanted Baby Jesus, but she wanted that beautiful red velvet high heeled slipper with that gorgeous white fur. The fact that the two had zero in common except that Jesus was the creator of all we see which she didn't really understand so it was a moot point at that time, didn't seem to bother her.

And so her card depicted the red velvet high heeled slipper with that unavoidable white fur, but inside it, instead of a cute little white kitten with a pug nose, was a wizened Baby Jesus with a tense face (who really knows what baby Jesus looked like anyway) wrapped in swaddling clothes that made him look like a butterfly's chrysalis. As if that wasn't enough, Rachel, who loved cartoons, comic books, and long explanations of everything, had drawn a speech balloon coming from the Baby's mouth that said, "Yep, folks. It's just me. Little old Baby Jesus!"