Tag: holidays

Do you send a December holiday card? If so, do you enjoy sending a December holiday card? Or does it make you want to shoot somebody? Allow me to make my pitch for shifting those Christmas cards to Groundhog Day cards.

Sound crazy? Hear me out.

Have you ever seen a Groundhog Day card? It’s not really a Hallmark holiday. But it turns out it’s kind of a good time to send a card, partly for the very reason that it’s odd. Here are some reasons you should send your family card on Groundhog Day

• You actually have the time to work on it.
  December is a miserable time to be working on a card. You’re too busy being depressed and overeating. January is the perfect down-time month to spend on cards.
• There’s no competition.
  Your Christmas card will get lost in the crowd of other Christmas cards, and anyway, all those other families are more interesting and better looking. Let’s face it, nobody will bother to read your card. Whereas a card at the beginning of February stands out. It’s a little beacon of delight at a dreary, quiet time of the year.
• It’s unpretentious.
  Groundhog Day doesn’t take itself too seriously. People smile, “Ha ha, a holiday for a marmot.” Everybody likes the movie. Groundhogs are cute. Unless they eat your tomatoes. But in any event, they won’t eat your garden for another few months.
• It has strong bones.
  Even though it sounds goofy, Groundhog Day, like Halloween, is a Cross-Quarter Day. It sits in the sweet perch between the solstice and equinox. It’s more powerful than it first appear. You can feel the light returning. Spring isn’t near, but you can smell it from here.

I’ve been sending Groundhog Day cards for more than 20 years, so I can vouch for the fact that it’s much more pleasant than sending Christmas cards. The main thing is to time-shift your cards away from the dread December vortex of the Christmas-Industrial complex. Other folks in my family, following this same logic, send cards on New Year’s Day, Chinese New Year, and Arbor Day. But I remain a fan of Groundhog Day. Join me!

Which reminds me: Happy Groundhog Day!