Nate and I had decided not to do Christmas cards this year. We’re in a weird engaged but not yet married, couple-holiday-cards-would-be-jumping-the-gun-but-single-holiday-cards-would-also-be-weird stage. But then my mom said it’s kind of rude not to send cards when people send them to you, and etiquette got the best of me. Off to CVS we went to find something generic.

And this is where the stress set in. NOTHING is generic enough. My family is conservative and extremely religious. I went to a liberal school. I’m a writer and run with hippie creative writing types. My fiance is in the police academy and spends his spare time at the gun range. I appreciate that I’m surrounded by intelligently thoughtful, diversely opinionated and spirited people, but this is why Holiday cards stress me out!

If I send a general message of peace, some high-strung person might take it as an anti-war message. “Merry Christmas” certainly doesn’t seem to fly nowadays, but “Season’s Greetings” truly offends my more religious kin, and then comes the conversation about how I’ve supposedly lost my values and gumption. I’m usually one to speak my mind but honestly, sometimes I just don’t want to argue about this stuff. I have my opinions and you have yours: can’t we just agree to disagree? Even a light-hearted political debate kind of irks me after spending years in lectures as a Political Science major. I’d do the simple smiling couple photo card, but again, we’re not married so that’s weird.

So this is what we ended up with: a little something for everyone. Happy Holidays, Season’s Greetings, and Merry Christmas (courtesy of the three wise men)! From the bottom of our ever-so-sincere hearts, we wish you the best insert your holiday of choice here.