And To All a Good Night?

In the finest Festivus tradition, I'd like to bother you all for a few moments and use this blog to air a grievance I have with you (the general you, quite likely not you specifically). I'm pissed off about people who get pissed off about the the holidays. Now, I'm not Christian. I was raised Roman Catholic, but have officially renounced that faith and consider myself agnostic or humanist. I do celebrate Christmas though, not as a religious holiday, but as a cultural holiday. A lot of the trappings and whatnot around Christmas I find saccharine, boomer-oriented, commercialized, and annoying, but I love Christmas itself, particularly the idea of goodwill towards others. That sentiment IS Christmas to me. For a little bit of time each year, it's like people get a "be nice to others" booster shot and spread cheer, for the most part. It's really nice.

Well, it's usually nice. But too many people have made a battleground over the whole damn thing. What prompted this post is that, around this time of year when I interact with people, I like to end conversations with a nice holiday greeting. I don't care what that greeting is. Happy Holidays is a nice catch-all because it's inclusive to people who don't celebrate Christmas AND it also covers both Christmas and New Years for the yes-Christmas crowd. Great. Merry Christmas is fine too, especially if I'm certain the person I'm speaking to does in fact celebrate Christmas. Other holiday-specific ones are fine too (Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, etc) if I know that's what the person celebrates.

But here's the thing. Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas have been claimed by opposite camps. The "there's a war on Christmas!" crowd, whom I loathe, has made Merry Christmas from a nice gesture into a friggin' battle cry, or a secret password of their Christmas club. Meanwhile, Happy Holidays has been made to feel like the response battle cry of Team Atheism (don't get me wrong, I've got a fair amount in common with this team). But the dilemma is this: I am saying whatever I'm saying to be nice and spread cheer, not to get into a fucking fight over whose version of the holiday season is "correct." Anyone who uses these kindly greetings as an item of division instead of unity, of polarization instead of good cheer, seriously, fuck you. Everyone else, Merry Christmas and/or Happy Holidays. Much love!

The Post of Christmas Present

Here's this years MS Paint holiday card! I hope that anyone that I failed to send this to as an email (a few addresses were out of date and useless) will see it here and have their holidays fueled by festive tidings of a .jpg nature!

The Post of Christmas Past

It now being December, I thought I'd take this opportunity to share with anyone reading a holiday tradition of mine. For the past several years, I have gotten into the habit of sending out an email with a homemade MS Paint Christmas card. For those of you unfamiliar with MS Paint, it is the Windows paint program, the one with the icon of a cup of pens or markers or something (in XP, anyway). I'm fairly handy with the program, and have created several other non-holiday pieces of bizarre art with it, but the holiday cards have a special place in my heart.

Below is an archive of every MS Paint Christmas card I've ever sent. Please enjoy these cards and know that this year's is in the planning stages.

2003:
This card was inspired by a previous work by my good friend Clive McEnroe (the one who shared the tales of Right Angles Pizza with us) entitled "Chris Rock: A Gentle Portrait." We were kind of hoping to spawn an entire art genre of photos of real people with cartoon eyes paired with an MS Paint drawing of the people but with actual photos of eyes added. In case anyone can't tell, this is Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA, then D-PA).

2004:
I mean, who wouldn't want a walrus for a doctor? This guy looks legit. You'll note the code on the pill is XMAS1224, which perhaps is an insight into how for me, Christmas Eve is the real Christmas celebration, and 12/25 is more of an afterthought. I realize this is not the case for most people and Christmas is considered to be the 25th, not the 24th. Guess what, I may not be Catholic anymore, but I still know Jesus was actually born in the springtime and the celebration of Christmas in the winter was only to tie it to the pagan holiday Yuletide, so the actual date is arbitrary. XMAS1224 all the way, baby.

2005:

Congratulations, another clue to my true identity (Barry White). This may be my favorite one of all, featuring Bruce Lee as depicted on the cover of his classic film, "Enter the Dragon." Hopefully this was obvious. Getting whacked by candy cane nunchaku would be awful, since it would hurt AND be all sticky and gross.

2006:

This one is very culturally sensitive, obviously. I like the lecherous snowman and the gingerbread sumo the best. Oh, anime, I like you, but I also like to mock you.

2007:
I guess it's in the spirit of "The Nightmare Before Christmas", except more directly menacing. Death's body has an odd shape to it, I realize, looking at my work.

2008:
I find curmudgeonly characters very entertaining. I think my Larry David is the best of the three, House's eyes are a little off and he looks kinda like Gene Wilder and J. Jonah Jameson's head proportions are weird. Eh, what can ya do?

Stay tuned for 2009's dose of MS Paint artwork!

Tales From The Lebowskis - Jaja Card 2: Jaja Carder and Jaja Card with a Vengeance

Last time, I showed you the greatest card I've ever received, a birthday card from Dave "Jaja" Lebowski, Sr. While cleaning, I have come across two more classic Jaja cards that I would like to share with you. Neither is quite as good as the first, greatest card (pretty much by definition), but they are both good. Rather than the "click-the-front-to-see-the-inside" gimmick, this time I'll just post up scans of the images for your enjoyment.

For the first of these two cards, I happened to have the envelope still around, which features strikingly artistic labelling. Note the double outline letters. Groovy.



Next we have the front of the card itself. It's a bit... floral... for Jaja's tastes, so I think he was clearing out a back stock of old cards that Nonnie left behind when she passed.



Now for the interior. In all sincerity, without any hint of sarcasm, this card was actually really touching to me in the simplicity of its message. Thanks, Jaja. Love you too.



Now onto the next card. Here we have a standard-issue holiday season billfold card. The kind that basically guarantees there's some currency within (Jaja's usual Christmas gift).



What's written inside? Along with a stock "Let It Snow!" message, we have a custom holiday greeting from Jaja. Not "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays." Oh no, not any sort of well-wish at all. It's a statement of fact. In the third person. With the verb conjugation seemingly decided after the fact. As if to answer the age old question, "Who loves ya, baby?"



Jaja does. Jaja loves you, baby.