Holiday Cards are not the first volley in the War Against Christmas

I stopped sending out Christmas cards years ago. It wasn’t a sudden stop, more of a gradual fade. It was my way of going green long before going green was in vogue. Of course now that I’m married, my wife has resurrected the tradition.

In the world today, Holiday Cards are the Politically Correct answer to sending someone a greeting without offending them.  Non-specific Holiday Cards are nothing new. When I was growing up, we sent these too. Only it wasn’t a “I don’t want to offend you because I don’t know what you celebrate or how strongly you feel about it” gesture.

If you got a Happy Holidays card back in the day, it was a personal indictment. We were admitting that either 1) we couldn’t get our act together and get our Christmas cards out in time, or 2) we didn’t expect a card from you and you surprised us when we received yours just too late to get one out by Dec 25th.

It’s a show of politeness, don’t overthink it

For a time we even handled those exceptions by sending out Happy New Year’s cards. Except we quickly realized that if we couldn’t get it together with a month’s head start, we probably were not gonna get it done with small window between Xmas and NYE, especially since we had to rely on the Post Office.

I don’t think of holiday cards as a way of taking Christ of out Christmas and I don’t get offended when I get one. I’m probably more put off if someone simply send a card with no personal flair indicating the card was meant for me other than the name and address on the envelope it came in.

When I did send out cards, I made a conscious effort to send my Jewish friends either Hanukkah Card, or a Holiday Card but if I slipped up and send them a Christmas Card, they took it in the spirit it was intended.

Some people get bent out of shape that the Political Correctness movement has gotten out of hand. It has, but not in this case.

“As Roger Simon once wrote, another way to think of PC is CD — common decency. It’s common decency to use language that does not offend IF your sincere wish is not to offend.” — Eric Zorn from his comments on Change of Subject.

So if you wish to make a genuine acknowledgement to those who may not celebrate the same winter holiday as you and you don’t wish to offend them through your reference, then you want to use a neutral term.

After all, isn’t Peace on Earth the underlying theme of most of these winter holidays anyway?

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No Hobbit House for Us

One day last June we looked at a house that demonstrated just how far apart Nightingale and I might be on our Forever House criteria. Two types of houses I really won’t consider are bungalows and ranch houses.  Although, I’d probably warm up to a bungalow if I knew I wasn’t stuck in it forever.  This house was a ranch which I do not like. Not only do they not do it for me in terms of curb appeal, but I also feel like Hobbit living primarily below ground.

She said the house winked at her. Upon closer inspection, it was more that the house would solve a lot of our current “problems”. It’s large enough that her family could come visit and stay with us for an extended period of time without everyone being on top of each other. The downstairs actually has an extra kitchen so it could be an in-law arrangement for my mom who will eventually have to come live with us once she loses her crapshack. It also has a rare attached garage and an amazing yard.  And it probably could double as a bomb shelter if Red Dawn ever became a reality.

It did need some updates to drag it kicking and screaming out of the 80s. The carpet needed to be replaced and the cabinets would have to be replaced, painted or color shifted. Or burned.  Burning was definitely an option.  Most of the bathrooms would need to be updated.

It also is a bit more west than even I was considering. The walkability factor just isn’t there, other than being close to Prague Cafe. It is in or adjacent to Schorsch Village.  It basically was a come-to-Jesus moment when we had to sit down and make sure we were looking for the same Forever House to live in.