Merry Christmas to All

[Ashley Weed]

Oh my! Since Santa has been vaporized where will my presents come from now!?

Thought I would share some geeky cheer:
From: The Physics of Christmas, "On Christmas Cards"
1. A homemade card may say, "I am wealthy and have enough leisure time to make my own cards." Or it may declare, "Admire my artistic bent." Or it may coo, "I am spending all my time on your card to show you just how much I care for you."
2. A "green" card - says, featuring a large-eyed seal, winsome elephant, or leaping whale - printed in recylcled paper and carrying a greeting in a foreign language, can not only establish the senders environmental credentialsbut also suggests that the recipiend should feel a twinge of guilt for sending that commercial card on nonrecylced paper adorned with reindeer, Santa, or a mouse peeking out of a stocking.
3. A privately printed card reeks of money. But it also may suggest that the sender is too busy to fiddle around with signing a lot of cards. An interesting variant is the photograph card, which is calculated to show off that new house or addition to the family, whether a car or baby.
4. The institutional card may take various forms. Firms housed in particularly ugly buildings may have to resort to a generous amount of snow to hide the fact. Others choose to adorm their cards with some element to announce the business they are in, whether microchip, widget, or spiral of DNA. "This has much of the same function as people who wear allegiance tied, cuff links, blazer badges, or some other form of insignia, stating publicly their identification with the values and aims of an institution," Furnham and Leigh explain.
5. The political card is used as a badge of social belief, mostly exchanged between small groups of stalwarts.
6. The cartoon card is for those who have no desire to remember what Christmas is all about.
7. As for the microchip musical card, "their tinny warblings can only be stopped by violent means, and to make things worse, the picture will be of either a fluffy animal or a badly drawn snow scene. Sever all relationships with people who send these cards," the psychologists suggest. "There is no hope for them."



Fröhliche Weihnachten und ein Glückliches Neujahr!