Just Another Pic on the Wall

still standing! ish...

So the 3 Kings have come with their presents, and Valentine’s Day decorations are popping up in stores large and small. Most of our post-Christmas returns have been made (except for one sweater that the saleslady convinced my spouse to EXCHANGE instead of return…I guess he’ll be going back to Sears, the sweater still doesn’t fit quite right), and even the mega-stash of cookies is down to a manageable 4 Tupperware.

But my house still looks like Christmas.

Santa Claus REALLY comes to town at our house.

Ok, so it’s January. And yes, the prickle-fall of the tree is starting to become noticeable, I know that this weekend the tree and most of the Nativity sets might have to get put away. But my wall of Christmas cards is going nowhere.

And not just because the wall is kind of structurally important, I mean the cards fun-tacked to the wall are staying.

There is something about seeing all those smiling faces that makes me happy. So many of the cards this year are casual snapshots or collages of family pics. Ours certainly was, mostly because I couldn’t get all 3 kids and dog to look in the same direction in any single picture. I love seeing these moments in the lives of people we hardly ever get to see.

To quote that Master of Verbiage, Billy Crystal," You Look Mahvelous!"

I have mentioned our shrunken social circle before (like shrunken heads but not grotesque, just unusually small), between family moving away and friends moving on and our own post-brain-tumor reclusiveness combined with kids getting older and thus busier, we are like Hermits of Suburbia. So getting those cards full of pictures of people we never get to see is a joy.

Some folks on the wall are family far away, some of whom we haven’t seen in years, but we  always vow that We Will Get Together With This Year! Some are old friends from college and before, with kids galore that all look like mini-versions of their parents. Those cards are cool. Some are friends we have only briefly met through brain tumor or NF work. Pics from the beach, on Santa’s lap, on trips or in the yard…the lovely crowdedness of the wall just makes me happy on these gray January days.

I know, too, that this isn’t REALLY like having contact with people…my wall o’ cards is reminiscent of the concept of facebook “friends”, the 400 people you allegedly are close to. But you know, those facebook friends (ok, not hundreds, I admit there are folks on the friend list who are more connections within the support communities we lurk in than friends), a lot of those facebook friends ARE real friends, people I know are there for us at any hour of the day or night (the benefit of having friends in other time zones, it’s always daytime somewhere!). So my card wall is maybe only a point of connection, but it makes me inordinately happy…like a little “hey, we didn’t forget you, and you didn’t forget us, even if we never see each other! Huzzah!”

That said, I do have some guilt, as I realize that my mental card list never fully translated into my ACTUAL MAILED card list. I have about 5 people I feel awful that I never actually MAILED THE DARN CARDS TO, I don’t know what happened, I seriously still have those cards here—to Deedy, and our Lake George friends, and other bt/nf friends…sigh. I am sorry. Maybe I will wite-out the “Merry Christmas” and put “Happy Groundhog’s Day” on our cards and mail them in a few weeks.


ok,  I figured out the issue I was having with photo uploading.
So  behold, a picture of Wite Out!

Heck, if I did that on the wall…just taped over the holiday greetings with seasonally appropriate woohoos, that crowd could keep smiling at me all year, right? ;)

So thanks, card sending folks, there is particular joy each time we add another pic to the wall…for in each of those we feel a little hooray from each of you. And the wall of the Hermitage is looking pretty snazzy.