Why you shouldn't send Christmas cards.

Jeez, what a waste of paper and postage! Do me a favor, friends and relatives: Instead, please PayPal me the cost of the card and postage. I figure $2.99 plus the $0.44 postage stamp should cover it. You find that Grinch-y? Tough sugar cookies. I don’t have kids, I don’t have a dead tree fire hazard, and my cats will destroy my house if I try to put Santa caps on them. So, you’ll not be receiving a card from me. I’ll look at your card, say, “That’s nice,” and toss it into the junk mail bin. In essence, you’ve paid $3.43 plus your time to contribute to California’s recycling program. Your card will probably come back as a coffee cup insulator, which would be a preferable alternative to the card itself. Skip me and tape the card to your next latte.

When I was married, my wife would slap these annoying cards on the refrigerator, doorframes, and staircases. She appreciates the cards because she is a nice person. I, however, am an asshole. I hated them. We didn’t have kids and were in the middle of pills and shots and whacking off into a cup at the hospital and suppositories and hurry-home-my-temperature-is-right quickies, and all of them at quite a substantial sum. I didn’t need to be reminded how easy it was for some people to plant baby seeds. Damn braggarts. I so wanted to send our holiday card as a picture of my genetic soup puddled inside a sterile cup.

See? Told you I’m a green Grinch-y asshole.

Look here. I just received the 2011 holiday postcard from the Whateverberg family. We have Daddy in a silly red sweater who is out of breath from sprinting back-and-forth to the camera timer, Mommy with dark circles under her eyes and tinsel in her hair, two self-entitled rugrats who have fallen for a cruel myth used to make them behave, and the family dog that was licking his red rocket during the three previous takes. How sweet. Buh-bye, obnoxious card. To the junk pile with you. I hope you enjoy your equally useless and wasteful company, which is advertising vinyl siding, curb painting, and closet organizers.

I watch people as they stand in front of the greeting card display case. They scan, lift, open, read, return, and move on until they finally find that perfect card and spend the next five minutes hunting for the missing envelope. Oh, how I want to confront this person.

“You do realize the person you send that to probably won’t read it.”

“Huh?”

“All I do when I receive a card is look inside for cash or checks, then flip it over to see how much the sender wasted on sending me somebody else’s quote.”

“But …”

“No but. Where’s the thought and creative energy in that? At least if you send me a family photo, it’s original—boring as watching mold grow, but original.”

“Do I know you?”

“Consider me one of the ninety-nine percenters who is here to encourage you to stimulate the economy in more logical ways. Why don’t you bake me some cookies? I like chocolate and peanut butter; any combination of the two will do just fine. Oh, and don’t put a card in the tin. Simply write your name with a Sharpie on the outside. I won’t need your return address. You’ll get squat from me in return unless I run into you when I’m with a relatively full bottle, in which case I’ll pour you a holiday sip of my grapeness.”

“Um … security …”

It saddens me to watch the deluded masses who can’t escape the Hallmark ploy.