My Blog Is Like a Christmas Card

Christmas cards are a direct predecessor to blogs. These mass produced missives share (and often over-share) updates on families' and individuals' lives. Most of the included information is of the boastful variety, detailing who is now happily engaged, who purchased a new vacation home, who got into an Ivy League school, and who swam the English Channel to raise money for muscular dystrophy, complete with photographic evidence. Each year, my family receives dozens of these Christmas cards and our voyeuristic impulses prompt us to pour over each and every one, hypothesizing whether their lives are really as amazing as they portray them to be. At least half of the cards we receive are from people we haven't been in contact with for many years in any manner aside from these annual letters. In this way, Christmas cards allow people to fulfill their need to have acquaintances they no longer desire to call or visit still know their business.

At some point in time, someone, I think it was Al Gore, thought it might be nice to babble about oneself on a more frequent basis and invented blogs. With blogs, in the same manner as Christmas cards, people can now talk about themselves from a safe distance, while others can anonymously peek in and form judgments with no pressure to respond.

There's no need to thank me for my blog, which is like having the joy of the Christmas season all year round. Besides, the metaphor has its limitations, as I tend to be a bit more self-depricating than your average holiday card. As I've learned, however, not all Christmas cards are completely cheery. My neighbors received a particularly interesting card from people with whom they no longer keep in touch.
Unfortunately, I was only able to take a picture of it with my phone rather than giving it the scan job it so richly deserves. For this reason, I'll transcribe the BEST.CHRISTMAS.CARD.EVER here:

Two [unintelligible] beautiful grandchildren were born to us this year! We had to say goodbye to Adam* when our son's marriage fell apart and the paternity test proved that Adam was not ours to keep. We are thankful for the blessings and support that God has given us to show that all have a purpose under heaven!

We wish all a blessed Christmas Season and a Happy New Year!

It goes to show that you can maintain a warm, fortunate tone and slap some tinsel on it, but drama still reads like drama. I feel like there's a lot more to this story than a half page can convey; these people need a blog.