The Family Christmas Card
My mother’s unique Christmas cards formed a series
From the year of my birth until two years
Before her death when the pain of cancer
Became too much for her to do them anymore.
In the chemical-smelling booth at Woolworth’s
Where you could get four instant portraits for a quarter
We posed as she had directed, then she would
Trim the heads she had selected, paste them
On the bodies she had drawn, with a message
Lettered in India ink (she had learned calligraphy
At the Art Institute of Chicago in 1922 from
A teacher who had taught Vachel Lindsay earlier)
The messages were always timely and witty.
I recall us in 1943 posed with a newly relevant globe
And in 1957 with an orbiting dog in space.
Her first grandchild was born too close to Christmas
To make 1958, but every year afterward grandchildren
Were featured, and when my brother got divorced
Grandchildren smiled alone as a solution
To the problem of dropping someone without
Hurting feelings, which was always a big problem,
Because my mother made friends easily and hated
To let go, but my father insisted that the list
Be kept down to five hundred for the cost of printing
Plus stamps and envelopes was over a hundred dollars
Even in the 1950s, but people loved them and collected
The whole series and knew my mother loved them
Because they were still on the list. My brother and I
Used to joke that we were sure Mama loved us
As long as we were on that Christmas card list.
--J. Quinn Brisben
8 JAN 2005
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