Is It Naptime Yet

Recently I had called my sister Andrea to see if she would edit Jon’s gift for me. I had left a message asking for her help on a Christmas gift, but if she was too busy in the next 24 hours I understood. (I had to get it done so I could use a discount.) She called back wondering if I was needing pictures for the calendar I make for my parents. Uh, no but maybe it was a good idea to include other family pictures in there. It’s not like I don’t include pictures of other members of our family for the calendar. I have the other nieces and nephew in there for some of the holidays, and even a sibling or two, but most pictures are of my family because I take pictures of them the other 361 days of the year that are not holidays where we meet with the rest of my family. (Easter, 4th of July, Halloween and Christmas being the ones I take pictures at, though we do enjoy Thanksgiving together.) I did e-mail the other siblings and did get a few pictures from one. And the sister who said I should include others has actually not sent me any pictures of her kids. She has one day, so we’ll see if she sends them to me before I need to order them on Wednesday. (I do have a couple pictures of her kids already, but not any cute Halloween ones.)

Today I wrote the family letter that would be included in our Christmas cards. After I did a very short blurb about each of us, I almost began writing about our big family vacation to the different National Parks, but it just didn’t fell right. It was crossing that line from “here are some interesting things about our family” to, “look how great we have it we were able to take two weeks and visit all these cool places”. Its fine to mention them on my blog, because it is a journal, it’s even fine to mention it on Facebook because lets face it, FB is to indulge and be narcissistic, but it felt wrong putting it in the family letter. Really, if someone wants to know about our trip, they just have to read my blog, or interact with me. I’m sure I’ve brought it up, hopefully not annoyingly because it was a fun experience for us, but it’s hard to know what tone everyone will read the letter. I know I’ve mentioned past trips before to the beach and Disneyland, but those were such small inexpensive trips, at least compared to this one. Maybe I’m the hang-up. I know what it cost us and don’t want to come off as bragging. (We did camp and stay at a cabin for free so it could have cost a lot more.) I’m sure I have my moments when I’m not thinking and just talking, so I don’t need something in writing confirming my rude, uncoth behavior.

We’re in a world where everyone is wanting affirmation from everyone. Comment on my blog! Like my status! This can be good and bad. Good if we’re writing smart and thought provoking things, bad if we’re wanting to show off and brag. I admit, I love sharing good news, and I also love being witty and having someone like my status on Facebook, but I’m rarely thought provoking.

So here’s to a new level of narcissism in the world, and trying to participate in it a little less, at least when it comes to Christmas letters. (I’m totally posting good news about Jon’s job in a couple weeks.)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 29th, 2011 at 1:38 am and is filed under fun, holidays. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.