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Open: The Perfect Christmas Card

Open: The Perfect Christmas Card

Last updated on: December 7, 2016 at 12:19 pm by Erin Wathen

Open: The Perfect Christmas Card 2016-12-07T12:19:52-07:00 Erin Wathen

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I guess it’s time to start thinking about Christmas cards. (sigh)

This means coming up with a reasonably current picture of my whole family–all together in one place, all looking at the camera at the same time; preferably not in matching outfits, but also not looking like we just rolled out of bed or survived a minor struggle.

For some families, this is no big deal. They schedule their professional family photo shoot for the same weekend every fall. They show up at a lovely local setting, in their coordinated outfits (with everyone in pants THAT FIT) and the weather is beautiful. And Lo, an abundance of greeting-card-worthy images, with the whole family looking like a Ralph Lauren commercial, makes its way to the magical server where Perfect Christmas Cards are born.

Thanks, stock family #46252 for demonstrating the creepy effect of matching outfits. #Pexels

Thanks, stock family #46252. Is it just me, or are these people so white it’s like they got buried in the snow, and all we can see are their matching outfits sticking out of the drift??

I get several of those perfect cards each year from my own friends and relatives, so I know they exist IRL. But I do not believe it is a reality destined for my family. Good pictures are not our spiritual gift. We haven’t had a professional shot taken since the kids were toddlers. I occasionally *try* to have a friend or visiting relative snap a good pic of us at home, or church, or the park. That usually does not work. Too windy/poor light/squirmy kids, etc. And the logistics of planning ahead/scheduling/dressing for/and travelling to an actual session with an actual photographer? It utterly alludes me. I’m lucky if we all get out the door with clean socks most days.

One year for the card pic, my kids came down in their Christmas jammies on a Saturday morning; I stuck them in front of the tree, and took a picture on my phone. Done. Another time, a friend took some pics of us at the park, and I totally wound up using the one where the boy was picking his nose–because it was really the best one, all around, which gives you an idea of how photogenic my family is. Last year, we somehow managed to get a picture on vacation in which we were all looking at the camera, and an ELK wandered into the frame. An actual elk. This sort of holiday miracle does not usually happen in my family. Still, it is a grainy picture, off-center, taken quickly by a stranger using my cell phone. In a parking lot.

We were even wearing Christmas colors! In May!

This year, we haven’t had much luck with the family pic situation. You might just get a card from me featuring a picture of That Family That Comes With The Frame. Except, in the digital age, That Family That Comes With the Frame is now That Family On The Website.

Every year I spend some time scanning those family models on the holiday card websites. Not to find one that can stand in for mine… But to do a diversity check.

I scan Minted, Snapfish, Shutterfly and TinyPrints, looking for a wide range of family models to represent the actual world we live in. The past few years, I’ve noticed an increase in the pictures of single parent families; interracial families and multi-ethnic families; and non-traditional/intergenerational families.

Here’s what I still haven’t seen –a same sex couple.

Never. Not on any website, not once. The first greeting card company to so bravely put themselves on the edge in that way would win my business for life. To present that image to the world, they will have to endure the wrath of the Million Moms whatever and the Coalition of the whatever else, and I get how that must be scary. But I know plenty of folks, like me, would appreciate the gesture enough to make up for lost business. It’s time. It is so far past time, for everyone to be able to see their family reflected in mainstream culture.

Maybe next year someone will step up. Hallmark, I’m looking at you. In the meantime, here’s a hopeful story: my friend Jamie, a campus minister in Missouri, was also lamenting the lack of diversity in the greeting card aisle–specifically, in the section of Christmas cards for “the pastor and his wife.” Yeah, those are still out there, in gender exclusive and hetero-normative Christendom.

15302439_10100576666827031_1289011959_o

*Artist, Khaled Khalili

Anyway, Jamie’s funny/not funny picture from the Christian bookstore inspired one of her students to design this beautiful selection of cards “From the pastor and her wife.” They are just stunning, and I hope they make their way To A Store Near You before next Christmas. 15302333_10100576666687311_942369425_o

15302530_10100576666492701_133547441_o

Let these “perfect” Christmas cards remind us that this is a season for making ourselves more open. That Jesus came to make our faith broader, not more narrow; that the way of Jesus is the way of more love, not less; and that the most faithful response to the gift of the Christ child is to open our hearts to the unexpected, the unfamiliar, and the under-represented.

If my little family fails the cover model challenge yet again this year, so be it. The One we wait for meets us all where we are, as we are–in our p.j’s, picking our noses, with or without woodland creatures in the background… We are, all of us, blessed and beloved– no matter who is in that frame with us, and no matter who the world says we should be.

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