Nothing But Iron: House of Few Cards by Steven R. Lagman, M.D., C.A.S.W. December 30, 2008 If you are wondering what happened to your Christmas card, you are probably not alone. Our four other friends are wondering too. I would tell you that your card is in the mail and that the mail is slow this time of year, but one of those two statements would represent a dishonesty. The truth is that we last bought Christmas cards in 2006. We last mailed cards in 2005. If you still have a 2005 edition Lagman holiday card you might want to hang onto it because they are rarer than two-headed buffalo nickels, meaning you might be able to sell them on eBay for big bucks. I tried to sell our box of unsent 2006 cards on eBay, but it didn’t work. One guy, who apparently has two boys that look a lot like Patrick and Connor, almost bid on them, but he also has an infant daughter and an obese cat, both of whom would have been under-represented by the photo collage on our now-obsolete card. If you want any of our 2006 cards, you can get them cheap by sending a large self-addressed, stamped envelope to our house, or, if you are patient, you might get one anyway because I sometimes use them, after crossing out superfluous parts of the greeting, for invitations and thank you notes. It seems that the painfully-stubborn trend is toward electronic cards, which traditionalists and anti-pragmatists characterize as non-traditional and overly pragmatic. I counter by pointing out that the amount of time, thought and effort invested in this electronic pseudo-holiday webcard is far greater than that of slapping a self-adhesive stamp on an envelope, although, now that I think about it, not a lot far greater. My method does, however, save both of us time because you were going to read NBI anyway and I only have to make one electronic card for all of you to share, which, I admit, can never achieve the personal touch of getting your own pre-printed card with the exact same hollow, I mean holy, message, exact same signature and exact same photocopied newsletter inside. By the way, I absolutely loved your photocopied newsletter this year. At this point I will share a deep family secret. I recently convinced Kelly of an elegant rationalization for neglecting to send holiday cards, but if you tell her I told you, I will deny that I even know any of you in order to save the remnants of my marriage. It goes something like this: 1) We have intertia (look it up if you forgot physics). 2) If friends who don’t get cards from us stop sending them, we will feel less guilty about not having sent cards in the first place. 3) If any of our friends would vacate our friendships for lack of holiday cards, they are probably not good enough friends to deserve holiday cards in the first place. 4) Greeting card company contribute billions of dollars each year to fund terrorist activities. (No, really, I read that in a forwarded e-mail.) Kelly may not be as convinced as I thought she was because this year she actually ordered 25 cards from Shutterfly. She then asked who I thought we should send them to. I drew a complete blank, so she stopped asking, which is exactly what happened in 2006. You can bet if you receive a limited-edition 2008 paper card (allow 4-6 weeks for delivery) that you fall into one of two categories: 1) You are so very special to us that we thought you worthy of an envelope, stamp and slab of cardboard or 2) you are a technological anachronist who, by virtue of self-induced computer illiteracy, has no possibility of seeing this electronic equivalent, which is not really an equivalent, because–sorry to brag–it is way better than Kelly’s stinkin’ card. Did I say stinkin’? I meant creative, unique and tastefully organized with cherry-artichoke tannins and a clean finish reminiscent of lightly frosted acorn stems. In closing, just a few words to reflect on just about every single thing that we did this year in excruciating detail, starting with the moment our alarm clocks went off on January 1, 2008 and ending with, well, now. Just kidding, of course. If you really want to know all that come visit us for several weeks in 2009 and we will recount it. To summarize: our teenagers are responsible, industrious, studious, reliable, honest and always considerate and I am doing well in my support group for compulsive liars. But seriously: we are well, active, happy and we love our imperfect offspring with all our hearts and a substantial portion of our bank account. We hope you had a Merry Christmas or other religious holiday and we wish you a safe, satisfying, recession-free 2009, or at least one with lots of perspective, love and laughter. And we hope we to see you soon, but not all of you at the same time. That would be crowded. Quote: "Is (the electronic holiday card) going to offend anyone?" --Kelly Reply: "No more so than any my other ones." --Steve Click here  for 42 pictures and 42 captions from 2008. I am trying a new photo sharing option by Google. It’s called Picasa. It’s free for you and me. Bonus link (without permission, but with expected forgiveness): Click here  to see our the funniest electronic holiday card ever. I guarantee it will make you rethink the tradition of paper. Thank you to readers Debra, Terry and Murphy for sharing it, and for being such premium disco dancers ___________ Nothing But Iron is an amateur sports column and electronic holiday newsletter written for the author’s friends and relatives, without corporate, government or spousal support. The author admits that he actually enjoys your holiday newsletters, even though it takes him until March to finish reading all of them. ©2008 DrTM Enterprises. All rights reserved.