More Red Sox, Less Red States

We haven’t sent cards this year. I can’t decide if we haven’t gotten around to it, or if I don’t really want to.

My parents never sent cards. Cards are one of those things, like godparents, that they said Jews didn’t do. (Do you know how many Jews I know with godparents? Lots. But not my kids.) My parents have also lived in East Coast Big City for almost 45 years. I, on the other hand, have lived in five different states as an adult, and I started sending cards to keep in touch with the friends I had left behind. But that admirable motive is long since gone. Now I really do it just to show off my kids. I mean, what’s the point of having cute kids if your friends all over the country can’t see them?

There were years when I sent dozens of cards (though a couple of those years the card did double duty: change of address when we moved to the heartland and then again when we bought our house; birth announcement when E was born in the middle of December). But the thing is, we hardly get any cards. I itch with jealousy at friends’ card-crowded mantelpieces and wonder what’s wrong with us. Maybe our friends just aren’t card people. Maybe too many of our friends are Jewish and Jews really don’t send cards. Maybe our friends are way too busy with their own jobs and small children, and they mean to send cards but don’t get around to it. Or maybe they just don’t like us. It’s a tough call. And it’s hard to decide whether showing off the kids (and, of course, staying in touch) is enough motivation on its own, or whether we should keep sending cards in hopes that someday we’ll get some, or whether we should just give up.

At least if we do decide to send cards, I have a good picture of M and E in their matching Girls Rock t-shirts, and I have good text: may the new year bring more Red Sox and less red states.

[Note: I am aware of the preponderance of red-state bashing in recent posts. This is not my general intention and we will return to our regularly scheduled subtleties soon.]