My Creepy Christmas Cards

            For years now I’ve made my own Christmas cards. I never buy store-bought cards, although I am not averse to receiving them. But it’s so much fun plotting my next holiday greeting that will horrify relatives and amuse my friends. The more hideous- the better. I have to do it in stages. First I have to come up with an idea and shoot the picture. Then I have to wait during the year for a 50% off sale at the site where I have my cards made. Then I have to buy 300 envelopes and 300 stamps. Those are done over the course of the year so that it doesn’t come at me all at once. I have to admit it’s actually fun to write out the envelopes because there are many people from my past that I only contact at this time of year. It makes me happy to write their names and addresses down, conjuring their memories in my head like fucking sugarplums. I also have several years of cards already made, so people will be getting Christmas cards from me years after I’m dead.

            Here are a few of my favorite homemade cards.

I can’t remember when I started doing this. It may have been in the 70s but then I just sent Xeroxed pictures. One of the first “authentic” cards was when I came up with the concept of having serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer and myself on a card- like a couple sending out best holiday wishes. This was long before you could easily photoshop something like this and my friend in New Orleans- Marcus– figured out how to make it happen. The funniest response I got was from a relative who didn’t recognize Dahmer and took the card at face value- she sent me a cheery note complimenting me on my “partner” and, trust me, she was not being ironic.

Perhaps my all-time favorite was this one I did with my good friend Jim Bennett who I made get in a Santa suit, and wearing silver-spangled gloves put one hand menacingly on the shoulder of young Jack Dafoe (who I was nanny for then). Jack gave the best creeped-out expression and every time we shot a picture we all burst out in hysterical laughter. It was such a wonderful experience and the card really came out great.

A good friend- Brook– managed props on TV shows like Homicide and The Wire and sent me a roll of police tape which I used year after year in cards (see top photo.) This one I did at my sister Lori’s house and got her son Griffin to lie down on the hearth and pretend to be dead and I traced out his body stencil and ran the police tape across the room. That “shoot” really was another happy holiday memory.

I’ve always loathed those red Christmas poinsettias and I thought it would be fun to set one on fire. But I wanted to make sure not to burn down the apartment building so I brought it out in front of my friend Henny’s home and doused it with a whole can of lighter fluid and lit a match. We had a fire extinguisher on hand just in case things got crazy. Much to my surprise it just wouldn’t ignite and I had it douse it again and again with more combustible liquids until I achieved the right flame. But what a pain in the ass. And it made me hate those red plants even more.

The “meat tree” was dear to my heart. I bought a mini-Christmas tree and then went to the market and bought a bunch of meat- sausages, pork chops, bacon, chicken livers, etc. Then I decorated the tree with the raw food and dragged it out into my hallway where there was better light and took the picture. I remember startled neighbors coming down the stairs warily looking at me. I actually based the card on when I did this to a roommate in Provincetown by secretly decorating a tree we got for the holidays with meat. She was so furious when she got home she didn’t speak to me for a week. I still think it was funny.

I wanted to crush up some candy canes on camera but accidentally cut the palm of my hand badly. A light bulb went off in my head and I laid out a holiday table spread and clumsily took a picture with my bloody hand clutching some cracked striped canes. I guess if you don’t bleed for art it doesn’t count.

I wanted to come up with a “bomb in a manger” but I had no idea how the hell to achieve that. My Boston friend- Gene– actually built the manger himself, rounded up some hay, and then with assorted gadgets around the house ingeniously made something that approximated a bomb. It was brilliant! Then he had to figure some way to get the damn thing to NY. (Imagine sending that through the mail). I thought it would look better outside so I coaxed another good friend- Vince– to drive around until we found a perfect spot to shoot the photo. We pulled over near a park somewhere in New Jersey and assembled the whole thing and then we noticed a jogger who passed and looked extremely nervous and who began frantically dialing his cell phone. So, we hurriedly shot the picture, threw the props in the trunk of the car and peeled out, panicked on how we would ever explain it if we were stopped by the cops.

Another friend- David, who also works in movies, called me and said he had a body bag on the set of the film he was working on and we could borrow it for a few hours if I wanted to use it for a Christmas card. I jumped at the chance and when he brought it in I laid it on the kitchen floor and slid into it like a sleeping bag so my hair would be sticking out. I have to admit there was something disturbing when I saw the final photo, but the idea of an aunt opening up the card and recoiling in disgust was too enticing.

Every year over the holidays I drag out a little fake green Christmas tree and wind colored lights around it and then hang home-made serial killer ornaments. I usually play James Brown’s Funky Christmas album while I lovingly attach each ornament. “On Bundy, on Dahmer, on Speck, on Gacy, on Manson,” I sing out loud, as if they were Santa’s reindeers. It’s the one thing that gets me in the mood for that endless wretched season of joy, presents, memory and madness.