Christmas Cards, 2012 and 2013

   I made a couple of Christmas cards, drew them up for Christmases 2012 and 2013 on my mission. Two years in a row- I guess that's enough to qualify as tradition.

   December 2012, my first month on the mission, I had a hard time adjusting to things. Well, I wouldn't say "hard time;" I wasn't homesick or anything, just- my bed was super comfortable and it wasn't the easiest thing to get up at 6:30 or earlier every morning there at the start. Friday, December 21st, 2012 was no different, except for a couple of things- aside from it being the winter solstice and the end of the world and all that, this time I had a plan.

   In order to motivate myself to get out of bed in the mornings, I would get up, and draw something.

   That's not what happened today though. I did have something to draw; I just waited till later to draw it. Because that's so much better.

   What I'd had to draw was my first Christmas card. December 21st, 2012, Happy Birthday Jesus, from the end of the world.

   And that's how the 2012 Christmas card came about, and the beginning of the Christmas card tradition. (Or, uh, well it wasn't a tradition till it happened a second time I guess.)

   The 2013 Christmas card didn't even start out as a Christmas card- in some downtime at the Family History Library, waiting for my companion to get finished microfilm digging, I started sketching out an iceskating female reindeer with some paper and a pencil I conveniently had with me (Santa's reindeer are all chicks, hate to break it to you- male reindeer shed their antlers in winter, and you understand what that entails.) Starting drawing this, and, it felt goood; it was the first time I'd drawn anything in months. I'm not sure the exact order of things, though- somewhere along the line I decided that it would be my Christmas card for the year, like the one I'd made the year before... also somewhere along the line I should have a message like the message from the year before... also somewhere along the line I was musing about meaningless song lyrics and how there's a huge screaming emptiness behind all that...

   And it all came out rather creepy. And, dare I say, awesome.

   Tough getting a good scan of that one- it's in pencil rather than ink, and I sketched in on the back of some scratch paper with a printout on the other side...

   But, yes. I should definitely think of some sort of 2014 holiday card.