Binderama60for60

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There was a time when people exchanged holiday cards. Every year, it’s what you did.

The cards were mostly store-bought and hand-written with the freshest family news. My Mom spent hours writing personal notes to dozens of people on her list.

If she didn’t receive a card from someone in a given year, she assumed they were dead and crossed them off her list.

When I moved to New York in 1994, I started designing and printing personal Christmas cards. I don’t know why, but I think it was a marketing ploy, at first. More than that, I was loving Photoshop 2.0. So it became a thing.

In my apartment on E. 87th Street, I jockeyed my Mac Quadra 660AV, fueled by a whopping 8 MB of RAM. I had only a blocky, laggy mouse to draw and paint. A few years later I upgraded to a PC laptop, with that little nipple/eraser button in the middle of the keyboard. My index finger was an omni-dexterous and magical thing. Though I’d say 90% of the clicks were Undo commands.

Once done, I’d take a floppy to Kinkos at two in the morning. I used their faster machines to tweak and calibrate hues, and their color printer and copier to make enough prints. Every minute and print was on the meter. It added up quickly. Back at home, I’d cut each out and glue it into one of those photo-frame cards. Ugly. I addressed each envelop by hand and off they went.

These days the process is much more polished and professional. But the brain-racking introspection and infinite-rethinking are the same. Until this year. You’ll see.

Like this 60|60 project, the cards have been a narcissistic but purposeful pursuit, to understand and convey my place in the world at a given time. With the cards, I try to tell a story with a single frame (or strip). Looking back, the series feels cohesive to me: a careening, jigsaw narrative of highs and lows, dark days and bright, vanity and bravado. Depression and elation.

And imperfection and vulnerability. Lord knows.

One rule, which I actually broke this year: I/we need to be visible in the card. Often it’s been as a shape or a shadow, but some years, it’s more prominent (see above, re: vanity).

Ultimately, I’ve always hoped them to bring a little holiday smile to friends and family. And for this 60|60 post, some holiday nostalgia.

New York: 1994-1999

I was pretty full of myself that first Christmas in NYC. Cringey. And the color balance was off.

The city got me humble pretty quick. Lonesome too. The final year I was there, I went ephemeral with the card, with me leaving only a snow angel behind as I departed the scene. A version of this illustration had a taxi racing into the intersection from the left. Too cynical even for me.

Las Vegas: 2000

If you know me or have followed this blog series, you know that my time in Vegas was one of excess, gluttony and not a little anguish. Definitely a period of emotional and spiritual stressors. Even so, I still love the place; it’s loud, ugly, filthy, greedy and beautiful.

This card was a fun one to design; I didn’t try to hide my cynicism. I still wonder why there isn’t a Vegas show called Naughty on Nice. Plus, it kept me out of the bars for a few nights.

Los Angeles: 2001-2005

The first card in LA I’m not even including in here. Uninspired and not very relevant to my experience. Some years are just better than others.

The next two years were more on-point and self-deprecating. Living in Santa Monica can make one feel, well, invisible. With a little nip/tuck, though, I would be cock of the walk among the pretty people strolling up Montana and down Ocean Avenue. I’d get my daily scrub at Equinox, maybe a wax, and then valet my hog down at the Ivy, take lunch at my usual table.

2004 was the only Christmas with Binger, sadly. He epitomized the spirit of the Grinch’s Max times 100, 24 hours a day. Still love this card and miss the Binger.

Given the mood after losing Binger in December 2005, there was no card that year.

Silicon Valley: 2006-2020

2006: A Big Move

Mary and I moved in together in Mountain View. I’d spent time in Northern California and I was up on the news. Seemed to me, a lot of people in that part of the country sat in trees for extended periods. Status-wise, I’d say that’s better than being a mere tree hugger. This was Mary’s debut in the series.

Miscellaneous Years

Living and working in Silicon Valley, my head defaulted to data viz and business-think. It was…limiting. Apparently my go-to Pantone for the holidays is 19-1540, burnt henna. I tweaked that green on the HOPE card so many times. Made proofs. And it still looks nuclear.

Not my favorite cards of this period, but worthy for conveying some meaning.

2009: My Favorite Card

Speaking of technology and favorites, this will always be a favorite.

It was the height of the great recession. My business was in the tank, my confidence was fried and my inspiration dulled. When this concept finally came to me, it was such the obvious direction. So simple. What if all of my imagined friends from Christmas fiction were connected with me on this new thing called Facebook? Eureka!

Once that fell into place, the build-out of trivia and voice was a ton of fun. If you can’t read all this goodness, shoot me a note and I’ll send the original.

2010: Mixed Bag and Gift Cards

The 2010 holiday card was barely meh. It was an imagined neighborhood in the global melting pot of Sunnyvale, CA. All the world’s religions and beliefs were celebrated in grand, garish, blinding American style. Not especially well-executed. Plus, my Brother Mike pointed out that my intended peace sign was actually a Mercedes-Benz logo.

Doh!

I tried to atone. Mary and I were headed back to Virginia to be with Family. Our gift for everyone: gift cards. Yep. Gift cards. Movies, hardware, dinner out. Good son, brother and uncle. I figured I’d make light of my lameness with some gift tags for the gift cards.

All in all, not my best Christmas showing. But these make me smile.

2011: The Year Pop Passed Away

2015: Grief and Gratitude

Mary and I got married after ten years of shacking up. The year leading up to our wedding day in October had been sorrow-filled. Mary’s Mom had passed the previous October. Then my Brother Tim died suddenly in January. My beloved Aunt Jeanne passed in April. And Uncle Larry would pass a month after the wedding.

Turned out to be the year we learned a lot about loss and even more about gratitude. Both make you feel more alive and awake and wise.

Goal: express all that on a 5X7″ greeting card. Still love it 10 years on.

Most of the illustrations started with paper sketches; I was feeling “authentic.” A harbinger for the next few years to come.

2016 & 2020

There was a lot to process in the last months of 2016. IYKYK

Our message: no matter what’s going on out there, we are chill. We are warm, safe and at peace, together. Joyful. We wish the same for others.

One recipient inquired if I was moving into my Blue Period. Not intentional but okay. Four years later, that comment was still with me and inspired the 2020 card.

2020: The end days were certainly at hand. We were locked down in the midst of a global pandemic. California was on fire, the air was acrid and the sky was orange for weeks. Plus, the summer prior, my Mom and our dog Rampage had died within two days of each other.

When the concept of this design-reprise bubbled up, I was dubious. Was I incapable of landing an idea that would more creatively express the true panic, dismay and uncertainty we were all experiencing? And do it in a way that feels Christmas-y?

So with a few clicks and sliders in the Adjustments pull-down in Photoshop, et voila.

I still appreciate that often the best solution for telling good stories is simplicity. And some continuity. As ever, we were still chill, safe and together. And joyful.

2018: Overachieving

Holiday carding is a hella competitive field, mostly because I’m competing with myself.

I was into my Authentic Period, so for 2018, I went old-school. I used the silk-screen press that Mary’d bought me for my birthday. Yep, we are putting paint to paper, just like Ben Franklin and Banksy.

The art started with pencil sketches, scanned into Adobe Illustrator (okay I can see the irony). I sent a vector file to a company I found on the internet to create the screen (yes I see the pattern). And then it was my brute strength and precision that forced paint onto thick card stock. I colored in Rampage’s nose on all 100+ copies. By hand.

Each card was enclosed with a box of pencils for everyone’s coloring pleasure. Best of all, we got some really cute photos of kids and families taking pencil to paper to bring it all to life in a way that was all their own. Very merry.

2021 & 2022: The Long, Strange, Winding Road Back

Like everyone, we had a lot to deal with during the pandemic. At the same time, we were dealing with some other stuff.

Mary and I had bought my Family’s summer home on Lake Michigan during the pandemic (a week before my Mom passed). Months later, we’d been vaxxed and the lock-downs were lifted. Mary and I put our California house on the market and headed east. Just before our departure, we had to put down our dog Ruckus. Then we got word that my Sister-in-law Martha had passed after a relapse of cancer.

All of our California stuff went to Michigan, where we spent the summer of 2021. Meanwhile, Mary rented us a place for the winter in Nashville, smack-gosh-dang-dab in the middle of the madness on Lower Broadway. Ground zero for everything. It was a crazy, exciting gig! Even locals were like, that’s too much.

That fall and winter, we were spinning dizzily inside the belly of the beast (albeit safely). That’s where the two-headed serpent metaphor came in. Slurp it up and puke it out. Binge and purge.

Each one of the dozens of hand-drawn drafts got friendlier, bendier, fattier. I’d wanted to keep it chronological but also mostly-legible. Plus it needed some fun and clutter to convey what we were going through. I like to revisit this one; seems like ages ago.

By 2022, things had calmed. A bit. We’d left Nashville and moved to Scottsdale for the winter. Perhaps every winter to come; we’ll see. It was a relief to turn down the volume and have everything in one place or the other.

Phew. I wrote each card by hand with two colors or Sharpies. We considered an exclamation point, but it was that kind of Phew.

2023: It’s Beginning to Look a lot Like A.I.

It was all the rage, the new greatest thing ever. Powerful and mysterious, like the first time you ate Pop Rocks with a Coke.. Times a billion.

So why not call on artificial intelligence to explain and convey what Christmas is all about. Herewith, the 2023 Christmas card.

The first thing you might notice is that AI isn’t really good with text. I asked for Joy to the World, I got this–and another few dozen even more illegible variations.

For the big thematic picture, I prompted Photoshop’s generative AI program Firefly to give me a lake at sunset and a few dunes, add a snowy cactus and a rollercoaster in the foreground. Make the colors bright southwestern. Brighter. There were hundreds of layers and iterations to get me to about 70%. Then it was time to add some details manually: a ribbon and a sign, Santa and a life preserver, a tree and a hummingbird, and a couple sitting on the beach. Oh, and let’s ramp up those colors a little more. Okay, a little less.

The best part: it really did capture the brilliance, color and excitement of that year.

There were two inscriptions inside and on the back. The left is a pure AI response; the right is a forged one.

2024’s card sucked.

I was distracted.

2025: It Had to be You

I had this year’s card done before Easter. A first, by about six months.

Bowzer came home with us exactly a year ago today, December 18, 2024. We adopted him from the AZ Animal Welfare League where he’d gotten deposited after a month in quarantine for Parvo. Sad for a puppy. A survivor.

We rushed home with him that day so I could get on a call while Mary acclimated him to the condo. Admittedly, we hadn’t dog-proofed the place. I could see from the office that things were in motion: he was bounding over the furniture like Evel Knievel–launching himself across the coffee table and the couch and almost taking out the glass console table behind it, loaded with curios. This wasn’t the zoomies; he was just nuts. Mary was almost in tears before I could get off my call.

Even back then, in between his moments of reckless mayhem, this was his typical pose. He’ll park a few feet away from you, at attention, all prim and proper, and lock eyes. Gentle head tilt. The sweetest, gentlest being, nothing but serenity and love. And he’ll stay like this until he gets his way. Which he does.

He totally owns us.

Merry Christmas. Happy Holidays. Have a Fantastic 2026!