Nov 30 2010
Card Catalogue
Late afternoon shadows on my house
Those of you who were perturbed by my Grinchy attitude toward Thanksgiving this year (and there were more of you than I would have thought) will be glad to see that I have already started my holiday decorations, at least around here.
I also started the Christmas card process today. I put on the Beach Boys’ Christmas sessions – what, I ask you, could be more festive than the Beach Boys on a chilly winter day – got out my green pen and the cards I bought on sale after Christmas last year, and my decaying address book. OK, decayed. I admit it. Dad bought it for me at the National Gallery many years ago, and it is now held together with a rubber band and hope. I can’t bring myself to buy a new one, though, mostly because of the names I’d have to leave out of it.
I started by addressing the non-American cards, since it takes at least a week for cards to reach our Northern neighbors, and presumably even longer for Europe. I then began to match the cards with the envelopes, only to discover that the cards required some assembly, as if they came from Ikea instead of Minnesota.
The assembly included tying on teeny pieces of red satin ribbon, which, when tied by Me, look nothing like the demonstration card which was on the top of the packs of cards and led me to believe that all the cards looked the same.
The assembly was hindered by the kittens, who had to jump up on the table to see what I was doing, and then “help” me by batting the ribbon onto the floor and playing with it into oblivion, when they weren’t assisting me with the tying itself. I ejected them into the woods, thinking of how our parents used to send us outside with instructions not to come back until lunch time, or bother them unless emergency services were required.
I now understand the wisdom of their ways.
After assembly was completed, I realized that I had to pull them apart in order to write my holiday greetings on them, and then put them back together again before putting them in the envelopes. The hard-won ribbons tended to peek out at odd angles, so I mostly ended up kind of slamming the envelope shut and hoping for the best. Note to Self: just plain letterpress next year, please.