Christmas Card Talk

This post of Swistle's, outlining her scoring system for Christmas cards had me cracking up.  (You really must read it - it's hilarious and oh-so-true.)  I've always been all "eye-roll-y" when the Christmas cards start coming in and now I've got a scoring system to back up my snarky comments.

I remember getting Christmas cards/newsletters from some friends of my parents who had two girls the same ages as me and my sister.  Everything was all "Daughter #1 got so many awards she started turning them down so other kids could have a chance" and "Daughter #2 is head cheerleader and captains of both the basketball and volleyball teams" and "our kids are full of rainbows and sunshine and never do anything wrong."  (OK, I made all that up, but you get the picture.)  I'd compare their achievements with mine (not making too big a fool of myself at gymnastics or managing to honk out enough notes in the right order to win a spot in the "good" band) and just sigh.

Not that my mom didn't write great newsletters; she did - really.  She didn't embellish or get overly braggy.  She didn't include the news that I had mono my junior year.  She didn't include the news that after years of arguing about it, I was finally allowed to quit piano lessons.  And she (thankfully) didn't include any pictures of me during those awkward junior high years.  I remember sixth and seventh grades being particularly bad years.  (Someone really should just pull blue eye shadow off of every single store shelf in America so that no one else even has the opportunity to look as clownish as I did in the 80's.)

She did, however, almost embarrass me to death when she mentioned that "in addition to going to high school, Jana has a part-time job pushing pills."  I worked in a pharmacy, folks, counting legally prescribed pills.  "Pushing pills" is a whole other thing - even I knew that at the ripe old age of 16.  I cannot imagine what our friends and family thought after reading that, especially the braggy family whose angelic girls never did anything wrong.

So if you get a Christmas card from us this year it won't have a newsletter.  It won't have glitter.  It won't contain any special announcements or news.  In fact, according to Swistle's scoring system, it would probably score pretty low.  But it won't embarrass our kids.  That's what my blog is for.  :)