Happy Festivus!

I spent some time today playing with my Photoshop Elements program. I wanted to make some goofy postcards to celebrate December - and gain more experience playing with software. I'll be sending out Christmas cards tomorrow, but wanted to just surprise everyone this year with something out of the ordinary, too. This idea of making the Festivus postcards came about from hearing on the news that a man in prison (death row?) was trying to get the authorities there to feed him kosher meals. Apparently he started a lawsuit and it went to court. When the judge asked what religion he was, I assume to establish the need for 'kosher' meals, the inmate said he celebrated Festivus. It struck me as funny - in an idiotic way. This led me to do a quick look on-line to read more about it. I remembered this episode of Seinfeld, but not all the details of it. One thing leads to another and I decide it would make a goofy card to post in the mail.

Here's the back of my postcard with the explanation of what this is all about. I left just a little room at the bottom to write a few short lines of text. I'm mainly just being goofy in doing this. Hoping all the recipients won't think I've given up on Christmas . . . that is not the case at all. It just struck me as funny and I wanted to share some quirkiness this winter. After all, we all could use some extra levity in our lives in the middle of a cold winter with white, snow-covered winter wonderland out there!

The photos are of the kids. Ben on the left in the green shirt was from this summer. It was the 30th? 31st? of May - Pat and I drove to Minnesota to help Ben move from one apartment to another place. It gave us an opportunity to visit with him for a short while before we headed back home the next day. Thankfully we were able to make a stop, a very short stop, to visit my Grandma C. in Minnesota on the way back. We were in a hurry to get back home because of our three dogs. There ended up being a snafu with the arrangements we made for someone to come into our house to feed and care for the dogs. They were having none of it and barked and were ferocious with our dog-sitter. Aaahhh, the interesting times one experiences with pet ownership.

Josh and his wife, Samantha, are in the winter coats to the right of Ben. This was a photo taken just a few weeks ago here in December. And I think most people know the other 'characters' in the photo. I pulled it from a publicity shot posted on the internet. The background history of the Festivus holiday was taken from Wikipedia. If you want, you can read more about this Seinfeld episode and the origin of the Festivus holiday. You can click onto each of the images to see them larger.

I had picked up the book 'Good Mail Day' some time ago. I have always enjoyed receiving mail, and this book advocates making and mailing mail art on a regular basis. At the time I got the book I thought, "What fun!" and fully intended to jump in and get started right away with making/mailing more mail art. I've been slow, just signing up with a few postcard swaps via some groups on-line. But this activity is something I think would be fun to do more of. Does that saying, "If you build it they will come" translate to "If you make & mail our mail art some will come back to in return"??? Maybe . . . Okay, these postcards are going out into the mail tomorrow, then it will be Christmas cards and a few packages I still need to get sent out of here. Hope every one of you are enjoying your holiday activities.