Blog - Holiday

After spending $80,000 on climbing gear and an entourage of Sherpas in Nepal,

I’m sure it was glorious.

The relief, the pride, the joy!

BUT, she forgot one teeny-tiny thing: enough oxygen for her descent. With temperatures hovering around -30° and an altitude of 22,000 ft., she laid her body down on the side of the mountain. 

And died.

Lesson??

Never trust a Sherpa.

Zeichen Press reached a summit too! We’ve been climbing Mount Greeting Card for a looong time and we finally reached the tippity-top: Urban Outfitters.

…But now I’ll have to set a new goal… Suggestions?

Urban Outfitters bought this card — but just to be fancy, it will be printed with a bright blue ink:Let’s do this, indeed.

Counting is not as easy as it looks. The intern and I had to count cards (we love to gamble) for a big Kate’s Paperie order.

Holiday cards in June?My life is an endless sacrifice.

All of that counting tasted terrible, and so to cleanse her palette, the intern put a lot of ampersands together. That looked exactly like this:And because I need attention, I made this:See, it’s a profound cultural statement? DO YOU SEE?!

I welcome the extra-ordinary. In fact, I am hyper-vigilant and ever-watchful for signs of miraculous happenings.

I ate two pounds of filet mignon on Christmas Eve and I’m pretty sure that was a miracle. It felt like a miracle — béarnaise sauce drizzled over huge hunks of very rare cow flesh doesn’t happen every day.I love Christmas Miracles, they are the most powerful kind of miracle — A change of heart is better than filet mignon and antlers growing out of a dog’s head is, perhaps, the most miraculous of all.

Jen did say I couldn’t make any more Christmas cards but I squeezed this one past her because she is a sucker for dogs and because I threw her computer in a snowbank.

The Christmas Tree lot shack doubled as a meth-lab and while I admire ingenuity and entrepreneurship, I like my Holiday Traditions to be more “cozy-by-the-fire” and less “mix-up-a-batch-in-the-tub.”

BUT THAT’S JUST ME.

The “lot” contained exactly eight trees but due to a Christmas Miracle, we found the perfect tree!

We only had to retie the tree back onto the car once. To be fair, cooking meth doesn’t really prepare a person for handling Christmas Trees.

My Jewish friends don’t have these stories and this saddens me, so I made them a card:

And like the Canadian Goose, she stayed. She stayed and embraced the cold, using her derriére to warm the waters of her pond.

And by derriére, I mean “bottom” and by waters of her pond, I mean “the Midtown Market.”

What?!

It’s time for the No-Coast Craft-o-Rama! TOMORROW (Friday, December 7 AND Saturday, December 8)!!

Here’s what I’ve done to get ready: That’s a full cord of wood that I ordered.

AND I made this card:Jen did everything else.

See you tomorrow!

xo,

Fran

Secured to her bonnet with picture wire, butcher’s twine, and Christmas Spirit (egg-nog). That spruce-top sat atop her head for the entire season of Advent.

She knew that it offset her dour expression — an expression she couldn’t redesign. Oh, but the tiny tree brought delight to all she passed!

For those blissful weeks, nobody seemed to notice her stern glower, her face — twisted into the judgmental scowl went unnoticed. She imagined wearing other elaborate fancies on her head — but for now, this would do:

I was once one of them — an innocent amusement park customer. I looked down at them now, from the highest man-made point in Shakopee, Minnesota. I sighed and listened to the chug-chug-chugging from beneath our coaster — our lives depended on the integrity of a giant bicycle chain. Our open-casket hesitated for just a moment at the tippy-top of the steel summit — hesitated just enough for me to grasp the inevitable free-fall. And as we plummeted to our possible deaths, I screamed.

And wet my pants.

The End

How old was she?

Don’t judge me.

Obviously, I wasn’t born riding a roller coaster, I was born screaming. And wetting my pants.

*Hint: this photograph was taken close to the time of the event and **Double Hint: I’m not the baby.Speaking of literary themes, there is a lot (not really) to dissect in this new (Holiday/Winter Season?) card:

The newspaper is delivered to our doorstep each morning (by horse and buggy) and I comb through it — if I find a particularly odd/sad/absurd story, I read it aloud to whomever (the dog) is nearby.

Here is an abbreviated digest of the only (two) articles I remember from the past (two) months: (In alphabetical order)

1) Stratosphere jump by daredevil, Felix Baumgartner: In an attempt to break the world record, Felix jumped from a capsule suspended 23 miles above Roswell, New Mexico.

I plan on breaking that record when I get tired of this whole letterpress thing.

2) Talking elephant in South Korea loves Zeichen Press. Strange but true.

Crazy?! I know! Koshik’s trainer must $*#%-love Zeichen Press.

Enough time-wasting.

Here is a new Christmas card (available NEXT Christmas. Sorry).

The Winter Walk Home from school included two memorable rituals: Dipping our un-mittened hands in 25¢ Tom Thumb coffee (how old IS she?) and passing by a very high retaining wall.

The wall held up the yard of our enemies: Two freckle-faced, red-headed brothers. These boys went to a Public School and as if that isn’t bad enough, they took great pleasure in tormenting me.

I will remind you that this is what I looked like:

Why would anyone want to harm such a sweet creature?

Armed with boulders of snow, poised-and-ready atop the wall — they would wait. Down Vincent Avenue I trudged: snow-pants under my plaid skirt, grease-covered hand-me-down coat, knit cap with sheepskin earflaps.

Again, why would anyone want to harm such a sweet creature?

I won’t tell you the ending.

We had a dusting of snow the other day but I knew better than to break out the snow-pants and knit cap. It was merely a teaser, a preview, an appetizer, an AMUSE-GUEULE.

Speaking of snow, here’s a new card: 

Maybe it’s the Grilled Spamwiches

or the Walking Tacos. Maybe it’s the 4-H Barn, full of homespun country talent.

Or maybe it’s the Birth Barn.Ham!

Perhaps it is a combination of these magical happenings. This yearly phenomenon fills me with such joy… such eager anticipation! There are visual delights to behold whenever the head is turned!

It reminds me of The Birth of Our Lord. I bet the shepherds know what I’m talking about.

Anyway, I shouldn’t question my inspiration.

Here are two new Christmas cards: