christmas cards

ok so i absolutely love getting christmas cards. everytime i go home for christmas break i like to look through the piles and piles of christmas cards on my family's kitchen counter. Half of the people i have never met nor heard of, but the endless amounts of fun that come from mocking the posed children in the annoymous pictures is no doubt the highlight of my day. Why do people think we care what their children look like? its really just a great time to mock the pretentous pricks with the fake snowflakes in the background and the awkward middle child with braces who is just coming into his own. in addition to that, why include a news letter? did i ask what johnny got on his 5th grade science test? no. did i care that you zip-lined with monkeys in costa rica? no. if i did, i would have asked, if in fact, i even knew who you were.

The worst part about all of this is that by the time out counter is totally covered with these incepid brag sheets, which never include the bad things that happen by the way, my father than starts to believe we need to send out a christmas card of our own. this, is where the problems starts. HE seems to believe that you have to send a christmas card to everyone who sent you one, and more, its just the "right thing to do" in his mind. Here is something you many not know about christmas: its in the winter, which means, i am fat and have no tan. also, i am not very photogenic to begin with and i dont own suitable clothing for cheesey christmas cards, nor do i have the money to buy any, or the true desire. My brother is never home, so scheduling this torment is a huge part of the pain. the dogs never sit still, neither my brother nor i ever manage to look good in the same frame so one of us is always upset, usually me, and then the addresses have to be deturmined and written out, which is at least a full days work. I dont even know half the people we send these cards too so im pretty sure they dont care what i look like in the least. my mom seems to be able to weasle out of the picture portion of this joyous event, but is then stuck licking endless amounts of stamps, since my father can never get the already sticky kind. picking out the card and actually putting them out is the main source of my dad's anoyance, which is interesting, since the whole thing is his idea every year. He even manages to look hurt when we dont want to participate.

this year i did everything online and superimpossed my brother an i on the same card, sent them to the photo shop and had them do everything except the dreaded stamping and addressing. however, i left town before the stamping and such began and left my father to his own devices and my poor family to flounder below his tyranny of assignments. am i a bad person? or just really really smart?