Happy whatever

I still have a few relatives and acquaintances for whom exchanging Christmas cards has not yet become a charming but anachronistic custom of our historic past, a practice long since replaced by tweets and posts.  And so, about this time of year, I start casting about for suitable Christmas cards to send to these hardy old timers.

For many years, I ordered fairly arty cards by mail from museums, especially the Metropolitan in New York, and the Art Institute in Chicago.  But, as I've steadily pared names from my list, I've finally ended up simply buying a box of twenty or so cards at a local bookstore.  (Speaking of dying institutions, but let's try to stay on topic.)

And so today, I dropped by the University Bookstore on "the Ave," walking distance from my house.  Sure enough, they already had a large number of cards on display, an encouraging sign -- I thought -- that Christmas cards had not yet gone the way of calling cards and spats.

Now, maybe the Christmas card offerings of the UW bookstore are not fairly representative of card sales across America.  College crowd, liberal bubble, and all that.  But I was amazed at how much the appearance of cards had changed in the last few years.

When I first started buying my own Christmas cards, as an undergrad, about half the designs were religious in nature.  Some were rather embarrassingly literal and saccharine, but many were nicely artistic -- somewhat abstract and symbolic, as well as beautiful.  But -- being the observant lad that I am -- I realize that the demand for religious themes has been steadily declining over the decades.  But, in their place, I expected to see -- as I've seen so often in the past -- cards with Santa Claus and his elves, warm family scenes, sleigh rides across the country, presumably en route to grandmother's house, and perhaps quasi-religious scenes of deer and birds out in the woods gathering around a manger-like object with sun bursts shining about them.

But no.  I saw very little of any of this.  Nor did I see much "Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year."  Nor, even more surprising, much "Happy Holidays."  What I did see was lots of scenes, often snowy, of nature, with no holiday references whatsoever.  As though we were celebrating the Winter Solstice (which at least one card expressly stated).  And I saw lots of rather attractive woodcuts of interesting objects and places, with little reference, again, to the Christmas holiday, or even to winter.  You just send one of these, I guess, and hope the recipient takes it in whatever spirit makes him least unhappy.

Even as a kid, I saw and was appalled by cards showing Santa pouring himself a whiskey and soda or otherwise disporting himself in a disgraceful manner, so I'm no longer all that easily shocked.  But now many cards, regardless of art work, come with clever and ironic captions.  I saw very little that suggested that any person was expressing a sincere hope that the card's recipient's life would be happy or joyful -- other than those expressing something of the sort in a highly ironic context ("Happy and Merry and Stuff Like That, or Whatever"). 

I guess one interpretation might be that we are now too disillusioned and/or sophisticated to hope for our own, let alone anyone else's, true happiness.   But I also think the whole issue of Christmas in America has become fraught with tension.  We know that many (most) of our friends aren't Christian -- we've always known that.  But what's new is that we now feel that raising the subject of Christmas even as a secular holiday -- "hope Santa brings you good things" -- is a form of cultural imperialism.  We're imposing Western concepts -- Santa --on non-Western citizens.  Even best wishes for the winter solstice can be tricky.  Best not to include any poignant photos of harp seals or spotted owls -- someone might take political offense.  And any attempt to make our greetings more catholic by gracing the card with Buddhist or Hindu images might be deemed a micro-aggression, an attempt at cultural appropriation.

Maybe -- except in the bosom of our nuclear families -- we should all just sit around a plain pole and exchange ironic witticisms.  Or did Seinfeld beat me to it?   Happy Festivus?

Or maybe the entire nation can coalesce around a December festival in honor of Momus, the Greek god of irony, sarcasm, and ridicule.  The last god that educated Americans have in common.