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Thursday, December 21, 2006

Accidental Narcissism

Due to a shipping glitch, our holiday cards just arrived. And, um, wow.

Himself had already expressed to me some ambivalence about the vaguely self-aggrandizing feel of creating a card with a family photo. But, "everyone does it," I assured him cheerfully, and indeed - most of our friends with children tend to send cards featuring nice photos of either their offspring or the whole family together. I've always liked that, frankly - sometimes those are the only recent photos I have of friends I haven't seen in a while. Anyway.

So I ordered these cards, with photo of Squid on front and suitably neutral holiday message inside. I got the folding kind, because the new ones that don't fold are hard to display and that makes me twitch. What I didn't notice?

The cards I ordered measure 5.59" x 8.64".

I just assumed (ass, you, me, yeah yeah...) that they would be a normal (smaller!) size. These things are huge. And glossy.

Had I only realized, I could have swapped out the Suitably Neutral Holiday Message for something more in keeping with the general feel of the card, like, oh, I don't know -
Here is a large, glossy photograph of our child. Look what we made! He is clearly far more special than any other child on earth. Please make sure this photo is prominently on display the next time we come to visit you. Happy Holidays!
Oh, dear. Himself is going to kill me.

8 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I like photos more than I like computer generated holiday missives. I'd rather know the person got hand cramps while updating me on their lives. Makes it more personal you know.

--Anonemuus

19:31  
Blogger nonlineargirl said...

I think if you are sending cards to people who know you and care about you and your child, it is fine. We did it this year (no fold) and have gotten several photo cards (two featuring children, one of Chris' uncle and aunt, and another with the wedding day picture of some friends).

19:40  
Blogger The Stute Fish said...

Anon- I do all three. Photo card with holiday letter inside and also handwritten (shorter) message. It's hopefully the best of all three worlds, in the available time/effort way...

And oh, my God, Nonlinear Girl, WAIT UNTIL YOU SEE THIS THING. I just sent you all one - it's a goddamn billboard, is what it is. I'm all for photo cards - I really like them, actually - but this is excessive!

07:19  
Blogger Kathy said...

We just got the card yesterday -- it's lovely. I think you apologize too much.

14:48  
Blogger The Stute Fish said...

I do, I really do, but it beats the hell out of apologizing too little, I figure. If I have to cross the line, I know which side I want to end up on, you know? Glad you got it in time and I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas.

18:29  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I love the big card! I also loved the cinnamon rolls -- yum!!!

13:52  
Blogger The Stute Fish said...

Shelly - YAY! You got them! I hope they stayed fresh in the mail, I tried to get them there before the holiday.

And I'm glad the huge cards were a hit, but I'm still going to tone it down next year. I bought standard photo insert cards at the boxing day sales half-off, and so I'm all set already!

14:30  
Blogger The Stute Fish said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

14:30  

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