I am busy working on a California client's Christmas card. The client is a small ad agency and marketing firm. They found a vector illustration and asked me to make it "Christmassy." That involves some heavy duty illustration, which is ongoing and won't be finished until some time this weekend.

In the former life I always designed and had our cards printed. My ex and I would seldom consult each other about the nature of the card or the content. That was my job.

She, however, compiled the list. I should make that a plural, for there were over 200 addresses on the lists. By the time she left we were up to about 240 names.

After the split I triaged the lists and kept my own tight one. I started at 35 names, then trimmed it in 2003 to about twenty. In 2004 I mailed my last Christmas cards to about 24 addresses, and I have not mailed any Christmas cards since. Once I movved back to Siberia Ohio I began a new thing.

I did a Super Bowl Sunday card/newsletter. I sent it out to about 30 addresses in January, just in time for the game. It was intended to be a comical thing, highlighting my previous year, in the manner of those long tomes we received around Christmas time from some families.

Mine was always an exercise in humility, humor and parody.

Last year I didn't do one. I had run out of interesting things to write and the gloom of my present condition didn't seem funny anymore.

That will continue. I don't celebrate holidays by joking about how bad things have become. Instead, I will wish everyone on the blogs and in the email address book by saying Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

It is much more frugal, and these times call for frugality.

Nevertheless, I miss designing those cards and newsletters. Doing one for a client is fine enough. And I have no list of hundreds to address, stamp and lick.

Almost forgot the epilogue:

I wonder how many names are on her lists now? I'll bet her latest mate is forced to put all those addresses on envelopes, stamp and lick them closed - and even probably carry them to the post office. Her list may be way over 300 by now, 400 if you count her boyfriends.