Here’s a new idea whose time has come: Sanctimonious Holiday Cards. The Gay Uncle recently received a “holiday greeting” from someone he knows in Berkeley, CA the other day. It was just like all the other cards he receives in the mail every year–containing blank-faced photos of his friends standing in some highlight-of-the-year location/vacation, smiling falsely, with their brood–save two minor points:
1) It was a “first ever video card” that had been emailed to him (and a hundred other people on an OPEN CC LIST) so that instead of opening it and immediately tossing it aside, he had to watch 51 full seconds of this family’s clip reel, featuring the kinds of antics that many parents find adorable (gurgling babies, caterwauling toddlers) but most anyone on the outside would simply find tedious.
2) The email message to which it was attached featured the following smug line: “in lieu of a printed card we decided to go the paper-free route this year” letting everyone who actually mailed a physical card this year know that their efforts are contributing to destroying our beautiful world. It’s kind of like saying “Merry Christmas! You’re doing it wrong!”