Calling Card
7 December 2005You’ll probably hear little else from me than talk of Christmas until December 26th unless, of course, the Mets keep up this ridiculous (and by that, I mean ridiculously AWESOME and I’ll see you in the effing post season, bitches!) string of acquisitions that I still haven’t been able to wrap my head around, other than to know that if the 2006 season is waking me up in the middle of the night in december 05, then I’m headed for either the most exhilarating or most disappointing pennant race of my life circa next septemeber. Holy god, this could be amazing. I know I start getting excited around this time every year when the trades go through but, seriously, its never felt like this before. I am cautiously SO EFFING PUMPED you cannot believe it. (Someone remind me to link to this post in mid-september once it becomes statistically impossible for them to win the NL because that will be a good lesson for me to learn about being humble and tentative when it comes to things over which I have no control).
But while I’m stifling the urge to run through times square in just my Beltran jersey and a Mr Met foam head, there is Christmas to contend with.
I do Christmas cards pretty much every year (okay, I tried to call them holiday cards… it didn’t take). There are a few reasons behind this: the politically correct one is that I love my friends and family and I want them to know I’m thinking of them. The other reason, tempered with slightly less christian charity, is that I am trying to prove that I am Better Than all the people that don’t do cards. You know that feeling you get when you read Real Simple magazine and you realize that your life will never be organized enough to accomplish everything they suggest? (Why, I had never thought of keeping my gardening tools in a planter filled with gravel to prevent dullness! Likewise for scanning all of my bills into the computer, turning them into JPEGs, and keeping all my financial records electronically!) That’s how I want you to feel when you see my Christmas card: Wow, that Cristin has her life together and I wish I did, as well.
Before you start thinking that I’m an Evil Christmas Whore for having that mindset, please realize that my Christmas card this year will in NO way accomplish that intended purpose. I decided to order photo cards, popularized by Married People or People With Children and/or Cute Dogs… basically, people who have something in their life that they feel requires a visual representation. I have nothing that falls into this category. Actually, that isn’t true, and I did consider using photos of the two things I’m most proud of in life—namely, my baby turtles and my apartment. But the turtles don’t photograph well, and putting a picture of the apartment on the card, as much as I love it there, will make it look like real estate junk mail, especially because I know I’ll want to, like, list the rent and the square footage to make people jealous while conspicuously leaving off interesting facts like how the bathroom ceiling collapses every few months. So that’s out.
Also considered forcing Roommate Amy to take a Sears Portrait Studio picture with me where we’re wearing coordinating outfits just to make my family start thinking I’m a lesbian and stop asking me when I’m going to get married. And though it’s easy to talk laid-back Amy into almost anything– I am thisclose to getting her to agree to let me redecorate the bathroom in a pirate theme–I somehow don’t think she would have gone for it.
I settled on a picture of me making a complete ass out of myself in public. It’s not something that will earn me any kind of Real Simple accolades, but I love it so much I can’t even tell you. I described it to Whitney, whose boyfriend actively refers to me as “the crazy one,” and she went “Okay, once Dan sees that on my fridge I’m never going to be able to convince him you’re normal!” Which is the basic idea. I want to be the conversation starter on your fridge. I am, in fact, just that self involved. Like you hadn’t already gathered that from the fact that I’ve been having one-sided conversations with empty internet space as if someone really cared what I was saying for damn close to a year now.
I’m in a bit of a personal crisis now that the cards have come in and I have realized that I ordered 40 of them and have 53 people on my christmas card list (which, by the way, is in Excel. Sometimes I like to think of my life as a Law & Order investigation waiting to happen– so, if anything ever happens to me and I go missing and/or dead, Benjamin Bratt can raid my computer and come up with an alphabetical list of my friends and question each of them about my disappearance) and, though I wasn’t a math major and if I could do basic numerical functions I would be in an industry that actually pays well, I am pretty sure that 53 is more than 40. Which means I now have to play survival of the fittest with my christmas card list.
Have decided that, for people I haven’t seen/ talked to more than 3 times this year, I’m doing written cards without pictures. That way I can do the Hey How Are Ya And No My Life Hasnt Changed A Bit Since Last Year Thanks For Asking. I am not following Real Simple’s advice to exclude people you see on a daily basis from your christmas card list. I thought about it, but don’t you try to surround yourself, whenever possible, with people that you love the most? I mean, it’s not Whitney’s fault that we share an office wall, she shouldn’t be deprived of the christmas card just because we’re on the same career track. Likewise, the people I see regularly deserve a nod for the shit they put up with: the excessive and distracting emails, the lengthy blog entries about Laguna Beach, my refusal to answer the phone while Made is on, the way I like to drink too much and scream THIS IS MY DAY!!! on march 17th. I’m making up for all of that with the christmas card.
With that problem out of the way, I’m already thinking about how I’m going to top this next year. (Please believe me when I say it’s awesome and this is a valid concern. I’m going to post it once the cards go out this weekend, but I don’t want to ruin the surprise for the blog reader/ christmas card list crossovers. Also just realized that there are probably people reading this that are not on my Excel grid…. hmmm, awkward. If I miss you, email me and I’ll put you on for next year when I try to outdo myself). My goal for this year is to just have a better photo christmas card than my older brother, who will be showcasing shots of himself and his wife completing the Maui half marathon. I don’t want to jump the gun, but I think I’ve got him beat. We’ll see what the family tribunal says at Christmas.
But I have a whole year to find a picture that can top this one for 06, so hopefully I’ll be able to get a shot of me, like, going over Niagara Falls in a barrel, holding a baby Liger, or bitch-slapping Lindsay Lohan, to outdo 05. I’m trying not to stress about it.
Until I figure that out, here is my Christmas Card list By The Numbers:
People under 30 who do not have an apartment number attached to their address: 11
People under 30 still living in my hometown: 0 (yes! A holiday card first! what a landmark year) Manhattanites: 9
Brooklynites: 5
Hobokenites: 2
People living in sin: 9 (sets… so, 18)
Recently married people that freaked me out by having the same last name: 2 (sets… continue to apply the above math)
Engaged Male friends where I added {name of fiance} {male’s last name} to the card just to piss them off: 1
Coworkers: 5
People outside of Eastern Standard Time: 4
Parents: 3
Military personnel: 2
Current college students: 1
College friends residing in the state where we attended college: 5
Homeowners, including parents: 6
Law/graduate/vet/med/nursing students: 15
Acting students: 1
5 Responses to “Calling Card”
December 8th, 2005 at 12:12 am
If I told you the when and where of our upcoming Lohan photo shoot, would you go there and bitch slap her? Because I’d totally take the picture.
-sara
December 8th, 2005 at 3:50 am
Completly Off subject but why Pirate? I wanna be a Pirate. Pirates are so much cooler that Ninjas.
December 8th, 2005 at 8:58 am
why NOT pirate?
Sara, I am so there.
December 8th, 2005 at 11:04 am
I find myself in 2, maybe three, of those demographics and yet I can’t help but think that about half of that post is a passive-aggrssive jab at me for not visiting you in NYC. If so, good work. If not, good inadvertent work. Either way, I feel guilty as hell.
December 8th, 2005 at 11:50 am
Wow I honestly hadn’t thought about it in terms of you not coming up here. You’re clearly dealing with some lurking issues. Way to foist unnecessary guilt on yourself… are you sure you’re not catholic?