...with every Christmas card I hot-glue

I come from a card-sending family; on my mom's side in particular. I always know the first week in December will bring a flurry of mail from the Peters, a trait that seems to be sharpening in the younger generations.  This year I got a card from my cousin's daughter two days after Thanksgiving. STOP MAKING ME LOOK BAD WITH YOUR SUPER-TIMELY PICTURES OF YOUR ADORABLE KID!  UGH! (No, I'm just kidding, Emily, you're awesome.)  My dad's side of the family is, as in most things, more... relaxed about it.  I remember once, in college, getting a card in the mail from my grandparents on my actual birthday, the first week in May.  I was shocked because historically Grandma was very late with cards.  But when I opened it, it was my Christmas card, and my universe fell happily back into place.  

I fall somewhere in between.  My cards get sent before Christmas, but they certainly do not go out December 1st.  And here's my semi-reasonable excuse: I make my own cards.  Every year, somewhere around December 15th I find myself sweaty and frazzled, surrounded by schnitzels of paper and rubber cement cobwebs; cutting, pasting, gluing, addressing, stamping, and licking around 90 cards to my innermost circle of friends and family.  And there's always at least another 90 people I'd like to include, but by that point I'm wishing I'd just sent a Facebook message, and you'd pretty much have to be my long-lost identical twin and/or an actual potentate to get added to the list.

I made my first cards in 2004.  I know this because I dated them on the back, like they'd be archived as collectibles in some catalogue instead of tossed into recycling bins across the nation on December 26.  I don't remember exactly why I started.  Probably a combination of my Germanic-Midwestern frugality (cheapness) and my need for my cards to speak to my soul and represent my true self to the recipients (hippie-dippie-ness.).  Anyway, I found some K-mart wrapping paper with terrifically jolly vintage-looking snowmen on a red background, cut them out with a crinkly-edged scissors so they looked almost on-purpose, hot-glued on some rick-rack (mankind's greatest invention) and sent them off.  Looking back, I see that nothing was straight, but crooked gluing has become a treasured holiday tradition for me, like burning the first batch of caramels and forgetting to water the tree.

Here's another one I made.  See that stitching?  Cute, right?  Not straight.

And this one, from the year I moved to St. Paul.  Very appropriate.  Also not straight.

And this is one of my all-time favorites.  A illustration from a 1960s holiday cookbook, with a message from a 1950s 7-Up ad, and more rick-rack.  I mean, come on!  IT'S ADORABLE!  And totally not straight.   I imagine by now you are noticing the theme.  And bear in mind, these are the ones I kept for my archive.  Meaning, these were the neat ones.  There were plenty of them that turned out worse.  I remember once sending off a particularly messy card to Great-Aunt Frieda with the justification that she couldn't see very well anyway.  I'M A MONSTER!!!

Oh, and then there was this year.  I somehow convinced my artist boyfriend to cut out 90 of these silhouettes (if I'd done them myself there'd have been, like, two stumps and a garbage can.)  So at least it's straight.  But I was in charge of glitter and glue, and apparently I was a little lackadaisical about making sure the glitter stuck, and everyone got a glitter shower when they opened the envelopes. I got a Christmas card from my good friend Jesse saying "Thanks for making our apartment look like a gay disco."  (Sorry, everybody.)

So why do I do it?  It would certainly be, as my dad sad, easier to just go to Walmart.  I'd free up a good 15-20 hours, send out cards my friends would actually want to display, and be far less likely to superglue my eyelid shut.  (Don't ask.)  Why can't I just by a $15 box of cards and be done with it?  Maybe it's because I'm cheap.  Maybe it's because I'm hippie-dippie.  Maybe it's because I just really like the smell of rubber cement.  But I think the true answer lies, as most answers do, in the Better Homes and Garden 1967 Christmas Ideas Book.

The photo isn't straight (shocker)  but you can see that it's an article about homemade cards.  And here's what they have to say.

“Make a special card, yourself, and you’re sure it will get a second glance, probably more. Personalize it with a special message, a snapshot, or an amusing cutout. A special paste-on, an added seal or ribbon, make a card more personal than the nicest one you can buy.”

— Christmas Ideas for 1967

I guess that's what I want; I want it to be personal.  I mean, let's face it.  Christmas is the one time of the year most of us send mail at all.  And a lot of the people I send cards to haven't seen me in years.  Now, the second glance I get may be my relatives saying "Wait, when did Melanie have kids?  Because surely no adult made this."  The amusing cutout may be surrounded by hateful, insidious glitter.  And the special message may look suspiciously like someone went on auto-pilot and started writing "Melanie" where it should have said "Merry Christmas" and tried to scribble a design over it to make it look on purpose.  (Sorry, Aunt Delores.)  But it's personal.  It's a bit of me that I can send and say, "you might not see me very often, but here's who I am. I'm a person who likes glitter, and rick-rack, and 7-up ads from the 1950s, and whose glue-gun can't keep up with her crafting excitement.  I'm a person who really, truly wants you to have a merry Christmas, and wishes she saw you more often, because she really likes who you are too."  My cards, like me, are not perfect, but we mean really well.  And honestly, if you look closely at that red-and-white stamped card in the magazine?  That's not straight either.  AND IT'S IN BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS!!!!

So here it is.  The 2017 Melanie Christmas card.  If you get one in the mail, please know that your tree may be raggedy because my scissors are dull, your zip code may be scribbled over because I forgot to buy extra envelopes, and your candy-striped ribbon will almost certainly not be straight.  But you'll think about me for a second, and that's really nice to know.  So Merry Christmas everyone...from 7-up.

Adulting...with crayons

My grandparents on my dad's side were hoarders.  Not "gosh, they like to collect things, so we're using this popular phrase jokingly" hoarders, but "there's barely a path from the door to the couch" hoarders.  Or so I hear.  I haven't been in their house since I was a baby.  They sort of stopped inviting people over, so I've only had it described to me.  But even when my dad describes it as a place where there's nowhere to sit and there are oatmeal containers of egg shells in the kitchen, in my imagination it is a wonderland filled with treasure.  Partly that's because since my Grandma moved into an assisted living facility, I've been gifted with amazing delights like matchbooks from Chicago restaurants in the 60s, and Grandpas's purple velvet tux.  I mean, who WOULDN'T want those things?  (Sidenote:  Apparently Grandma always justified her keeping ways by saying "But someone might want it some day."  And now I am proving her right.  Sorry Dad!  You're welcome, Grandma!)

But this isn't a new feeling; that of an adult receiving mementos of her family's life.  Even as I kid, I had the sneaking suspicion that anything I really wanted was probably somewhere in the house in Morton Grove.  Case in Point:  When I was around 9 or 10 years old, I was really interested in the 1950s. (I played alone a lot.)  I told Mom I wished I had some magazines from the 50s so I could see pictures of the clothes and houses and things, and Mom said "I'm sure Grandma has some."  And sure enough, I was given a handful of magazines that shaped my aesthetic for the rest of eternity, and cemented my absolute devotion to old-timey ladies magazines.  I've amassed quite a collection in the last 30 years, and I've always got room for more, but these five are my favorites.  I know every picture, every ad, every story in each, and they are all PERFECT.

And one of the magazines was a double jackpot, because it was the DECEMBER ISSUE!!!  CHRISTMAS!!!!!! Oh my gosh.  The greatest.  It's a fabulous magazine called "Living for Young Homemakers."  I don't know much about this magazine, as it doesn't make the cut on the "List of Defunct Ladies' Magazines" page on Wikipedia, which is about as far as my research has gone.  But it's awesome.  (Do you have issues of it, sitting around and making your family think you're a hoarder?  SEND THEM TO ME!)  It's definitely aimed at the young and perhaps would-be urbane set.  But young urbane people have kids, so there's a spread about dolls and dollhouses.  LOOK AT THIS, PEOPLE.  

Did I lose my 9-year-old mind?  Of COURSE I did.  It's everything.  Toys, party dresses, playing house, and that weird 3-D/2-D combination art that I've always loved (I know that's very specific, but thanks, Living for Young Homemakers December 1960.) In any case, I pulled this magazine out again this Christmas, and as I was flipping through it, I had a revelation.  I never wanted those dolls.  I wanted to BE those dolls!  I still want to be them, and the good thing is that now I am an adult, and I can do or be whatever I want.

In particular, I want to be this little minx in the kitchen.  Look at this!  She's got everything: the ruffled dress with the crinoline, the weird mechanical cardboard clock, the appliances (man, the appliances!), the wide variety of cereals from which to choose, the dog and cat that get along and will never pee on your bed, and that pink carpet sweeper.  (Dear lord, it's almost too much to bear.)  Well, a lot of those things are out of my reach, at least just sitting around the house on a Monday night.  But you know what I CAN have?  That swell 2-D drawing of a candy shop, because I have a box of crayons and a can-do attitude!

So here it is!  I certainly couldn't be bothered to buy anything (or put on pants and leave the house), so I took the paper I'd used to make a photo backdrop for Mom and Dad's golden wedding anniversary, taped it around my protest sign from the Women's March, pulled out my box of 64 Crayolas, and went to work.  It's not too bad, right?  Especially there on the mantel with the candles and the Santa mug and pitcher set. 

Look, I know it's dumb. But isn't that part of being an adult?  Getting to have those things you've always wanted?  And honestly, all it cost me was a trip to the basement and an hour or two (I'm sure you could do it in 30 minutes, but I am, frankly, a lousy drawer.  My first attempt at the jars looked like someone had run over a horny toad.) And it makes me happy every time I walk past it, so now I'm the proud owner of something I've coveted since I was 9.  ADULTING!  (...with crayons...)