christmas cards

yesterday on all things considered i heard this funny commentary about christmas cards by a jesuit priest. he was criticizing the current craze for family-oriented christmas cards, wherein we take pictures of ourselves and our kids, often from a trip to a fancy beach-front location, and put those pictures in the place of the holy family on the cards we send to family and friends at christmastime. though his commentary was really funny ("think more virgin mary and less virgin islands"), i also felt chagrined.

this was the first year i fell prey to the my-cute-kids-on-the-christmas-card trend, mostly because we just didn't have the energy to make meaningful christ-centered christmas cards, and secondarily because i know people we don't see often like seeing pictures of my cute kids (and i like seeing pictures of theirs!). and the simple message on our cards--JOY--i meant to be big enough to embrace the christmas miracle but also all the other small things that bring joy to our lives (like noah and isla, for example). but maybe subtlety like that isn't quite in keeping with "go, tell it on the mountain!"

but it's tricky, because sometimes hearing a story over and over again makes its meaning go away. it's not like the cards with a trite hallmark christmasy rhyme and a picture of a manger really make me take stock of the christmas miracle. i think the best cards take a small part of the story and open it up, or let you make meaning out of it yourself. i think this also about christmas songs, poetry, media, etc. and this is why i love the charlie brown christmas special more than any other christmas movie: linus reciting the poetic text from the book of luke to a crowd of silly young people trying to put on a pageant, silencing them all. it stops you in your tracks. and some of the traditional carols on sufjan stevens' christmas cds are like this too. my favorite right now is "lo, how a rose e'er blooming," and the powerful image of incarnation it evokes with the lines "it came, a flowerth bright/amid the cold of winter/when half-spent was the night... to show god's love aright/she bore to us a savior/when half-spent was the night."

next year i promise we'll make cards again, with a subtle image or text that will leave you feeling like, "yeah... that's it! that's what it's all about!"

(but in one more defense of this year's cards: incarnation means christ came in body, he gestated in his mother's womb, he was born with blood and amniotic fluid through sweat and tears, he was a beautiful little baby, he nursed at his mother's breast, she cried with joy, she was a mother above all things. and right now being mother to my little ones is what the christmas story is about for me. and right now joy, and holding tight. but later having to learn to let go...

but we'll wait until easter for that.)