This Reminds Me

I’m pleased by the friends who have recently asked, “Where’s your Christmas card?”  I love Christmas cards, but this year – first time ever – we’re not sending one.  Instead. we’re doing New Year’s cards.  So if you normally get a Christmas card from us, just know you’re getting a New Year’s card instead.  And if you don’t normally get one and want one – just ping me!  I love creating and sending them.

While you wait – here’s a stroll down a snow-covered, somewhat-twisted Memory Lane.

1984:  My first unique Christmas card, produced with the collaboration of my brilliant niece Sarah, and my brother John David – when I was Becky Hoffman.   We were a great team of “21 Fingers, Inc.”, referencing the 10 fingers each of Sarah and me,  plus David’s one finger.

1986:  Perhaps my very favorite card.  Nothing like Bruce Springsteen’s buns to inspire a little Christmas baking later.  We inserted a small plastic bag with a red rock and a jingle bell in each card, sealed with a music note sticker.  Only one recipient “got it,” a little girl in my Wednesday night bible study class who ran to hug me saying, “A jingle bell and a rock!  Jingle Bell rock!”

1986 Card Cover – By far the most artistic card (black & white, no less), playing on the upcoming 40th anniversary of “It’s a Wonderful Life.”  The 8mm film clip taped to the front of each card showed the three of us holding a poster that read, “And have a Happy New Year, too.”  Several recipients did examine the strip with a magnifying glass, so I was glad David insisted on authenticity.

1987 Card Body:  Sarah was working as a movie usher, so “Jimmy and Donna” snuck in to take the photo.  Truth be told, we snuck into the theaters she was serving many, many times, usually with David hissing at me to “look inconspicuous.”

1989, the year we got married – Our only “non-card,” because we were so busy with wedding preparations.  Too big to  scan, this 11″ x 17″ quad-folded color-me greeting made us “31 Fingers,” as Keith had joined the family.

1990 Card Photo, playing on “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and my mother always telling people, “You’ll have to step over his (artificial) legs” – it was a Texas Chainsaw Christmas, complete with bloodied artificial limbs.  This was the card my mother begged us not to send to “her family,” as though they weren’t “our family,” too.  I was pregnant with Rachel here – which may explain a lot.

1990 Card Insert – We affixed real bandaids to the inside.

1993 – Rachel was the world’s biggest Barney fan.  I had return address labels created displaying “Barney Woodworth” and for years, we got junk mail addressed to him.  I was pregnant with Lois, who was born Thanksgiving weekend….and two months early…..

….so we designed this Christmas card insert as her birth announcement.

1995 – along came Hannah, the biggest baby born at Memorial Southwest Hospital that year.  Twelve years later – cousin James (Sarah’s son) beat her by two ounces.

1996 – Loved this picture, because one-year-old Hannah thrust her hand straight into the “Happy Birthday Jesus” icing, then wiped it on her collar.

1999 – Digging in for Y2K atop one of the huge mounds of dirt piled from repairing under-the-foundation Houston plumbing.  We had two inserts prepared:  One was the norm, one said we were moving to San Antonio.  We held our breath, not knowing which we were sending until after Thanksgiving.  It was San Antonio.

2000 – First Christmas card from San Antonio, in front of the Alamo – “Remember the Woodworths” – certainly an appropriate send to our good friends and family in Houston.  My sister Judy bought the girls that puffy Santa, and he’s been in almost every Christmas card photo since.

2006 – First card with Julia, and everyone in their Old Navy flag tees – all American citizens, but yet the “Worldwide Woodworths.”

Want to see them all?  Cover over some time!   Christmas card photos from 1984 – 2008 are hung in the upstairs hallway.  So many frames – I’ve given up trying to keep them all straight.  But that’s okay.  I’m a little twisted myself.