Stringing Our Own Way Home: a meditation on Christmas cards

What an obnoxious tradition, really. The pre-social media version of the braggy instagram post: ‘Here’s a photo of my beautiful seven person family all clad in matching Louis Vuitton pantsuits [are those even a thing?]. The highlight of this year was when we all got matching nose jobs!’ 

Okay, maybe that’s unrealistic. Maybe it’s my self-doubt flaring up, my constant fear that I should be further along in my life than I am, that I’m not doing enough. We’ve been over this before; I painted some affirmations to remind myself that’s not true:

Plus, I can’t be that cynical about holiday cards, because I’m typing this mere hours after picking up my own shrink-wrapped puck of postcards, fresh off the printer, full bleed all the way to the edge. They’re beautiful; I’m so proud of them. I spent a whole day in my Craft Lab (alternatively known as my office, but Craft Lab feels more inspiring) making them, watching interviews with Benedict Cumberbatch [side note: has anyone else watched The Power of the Dog, and please can we talk about it? I found it positively arresting], and exerting more creativity than I’d used in the past month. It fueled me for days afterwards.

I have mixed feelings about holiday cards. (Big surprise, I have mixed feelings about basically everything. Welcome to the Ambivalence Corner with McKenzie. Why a corner? Because there’s always at least two sides. Or better yet—welcome to the N-Sided Polygon with McKenzie! Pull up a chair; there’s plenty of room for everyone.)

First: are they holiday cards or Christmas cards? (Or, if you’re Shutterfly and capitalizing on the delinquent card-makers, New Years’ cards?!) For the folks I grew up going to church with, they’re Christmas cards—an annual opportunity to witness to the centrality of Christ and mail everyone some scripture references. ‘Holiday card’ feels blasphemous in that context, like you’re passing up an opportunity to witness, like you’re ashamed of your Savior in the face of [say it like a dirty word] multiculturalism. 

But I don’t think multiculturalism is a dirty word. I asked my spiritual director months ago—why are we so afraid of the idea that God might actually be in everything? Why do we insist on manufacturing scarcity out of the omnipresent Divine? Shouldn’t faith help us feel less threatened by difference, rather than more? 

I was on the fence about making a holiday card. They’re so domestic, so gendered, often centering depictions of the heterosexual nuclear family as the ideal, reinforcing whiteness and wealth accumulation. Making them, collecting all the addresses, fussing about getting them out on time—that’s what my mom does, and nobody wants to turn into their mother (you know, on principle. My mom’s great. And I know you’re reading this, Mom). When Michael and I got covid over Thanksgiving and had to stay in Texas for twice as long as we originally planned, I figured I’d lost too much time and I might pick up with holiday cards again next year. Maybe. Or I’d let the practice get away from me entirely. But then I was scrolling instagram one night (I suppose one form of social media reinforces another…) and saw that a friend I used to be close to just got engaged, and I decided to make a holiday card so that my distant friends don’t forget me. Sure, maybe not the purest reasons. But ultimately, isn’t that always why we try to stay in contact with people? 

Two nights later I came home from work at the liquor store to find the mailbox stuffed with cards: a detailed update from friends who moved to Arizona, a card from friends who got engaged in October, and a photo collage of a family whose kids we don’t get to see regularly anymore. And each card warmed my heart. 

For Christmas this year, my mom made matching gifts for my brothers and I: we each received a plain 3-ring binder filled with sheet protectors that held Christmas cards from every year of our lives. A living treasury in the form of Christmas missives. 

It’s up to us to create our own connective threads in this life, like the ropes ranchers would use to find their way back to the house during a whiteout. We have to string our own way home: maybe that’s what holiday cards are for.