A Christmas tradition, from 1973
Christmas was a big holiday for my Dad: each year, he’d send out custom Christmas cards with obscure messages. He’d look forward to the phone calls that would result — people asking for hints, or badgering him for the new low of that year’s wordplay. He’d usually chide them (truthfully) that I’d gotten the answer in only a minute or so – I think my fondness for solving puzzles was inherited from his fondness for creating them.
It’s been 35 years since the first of these cards – I’m starting a new tradition, posting them here for the holidays. Here’s the first one.
what a great tradition. is that card hand-drawn?
Comment by Don Park — Tuesday, December 16, 2008 @ 2:06 pm
Nice. I got that one figured out before the big image even finished loading
Comment by Aaron B. Hockley — Tuesday, December 16, 2008 @ 2:37 pm
Don: I don’t know who drew the early cards for him, but the last few (in the late 1990’s) benefitted from the Internet, and for a decade before that, MacDraw: Dad would sometimes call me around Thanksgiving and tell me (in abstract terms) the pictures he needed for that year’s card.
Aaron:
I remember getting that one right away, too — of course, I was 10 then.
Comment by stearns — Tuesday, December 16, 2008 @ 9:54 pm
[...] year I started a new tradition and posted my Dad’s first “obscure” Christmas card from 1973; this year’s reposted card appears just in time, because technical difficulties knocked this [...]
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