6 D THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2020IT WAS ONLYOctober, and an un-
seasonably hot and sunny day to
boot, but Rovonne Staten’s front
steps in Grapevine, Texas,
brimmed with Christmas-y photo
props. For her family’s holiday-
card photo shoot, there were
poinsettias and wreaths, tinsel
and tartan, an oversize ornament
emblazoned with the letter “S,” a
plate of cookies for Santa — and a
sign reminding him to please stay
outside.
“Santa can’t come in the house
because of Covid,” joked Ms.
Staten, 41, a project engineer,
adding, “I want people to have a
bright spot by looking at our
picture and thinking, ‘Oh, that’s
cute; that’s nice — you know, it
looks like things might be OK.’ ”
At the end of a year marked by
distance and disconnection, Ms.
Staten will send holiday cards for
the first time ever. And she is not
alone. Paperless Post, an online
card and invitation company,
found in a recent survey that 60
percent of users plan on sending
holiday cards this year (compared
with the 38 percent of respondents
who sent them last year). The
craft site Etsy has had a 23 per-
cent increase in searches for
holiday cards in the last three
months compared with last year.
Of the 2,000 Americans surveyed
in September by Minted.com, a
home-décor and stationery com-
pany, nearly three-quarters
agreed that holiday cards have
more sentimental value this year
than in previous years.
Understand the realities
of the situation.
Many cards of holidays past
paired sun-dappled vacation
collages or magazine-worthy
images of grinning children with
pleasant messages about joy. But
after a year marked more by
worry and stress than merriness,
and with the pandemic and its
economic toll raging on, some
card senders, stationery compa-
nies and portrait photographers
are taking another approach: out
with the honeyed sentiments, in
with masks and other depictions
of the realities of this era.
“We should send holiday cards
as a way to connect with people,”
said Elaine Swann, a lifestyle and
etiquette expert. “And I believe
that we can reference the pan-
demic in this medium, because
everyone has been impacted in
some way and it’s important to be
upfront about it.”
For Ms. Staten, that meant
purchasing red masks (she hot-
glued white fuzzy Santa trim to
her husband’s) and enlisting a
local photographer to capture her
family of five from 10 feet away.
Even that style of portraiture is a
cultural outcrop of the pandemic:
The photographer, Rachna
Agrawal, first photographed the
Statens for the Front Steps
Project, for which photographers
around the world captured so-
cially distanced images of families
as a way to raise funds for local
nonprofits and small businesses.
Shrutti Garg, a Brooklyn-based
photographer who also partici-
pated in the Front Steps Project
this spring, said she has several
clients planning to repurpose
those photos, however casual they
may be, for holiday cards.
“You can imagine they’re not
the best photos,” Ms. Garg said.
“But there’s a lot of families that
are still going to use them, be-
cause it is what it is: This year, we
were all in our pajamas at home.”Be mindful of your tone.
One Front Steps client, Mai
Nguyen-Huu, rehired Ms. Garg to
shoot another set of outdoor fam-
ily portraits for holiday cards. She
and her husband have two daugh-
ters, about 4 months old and al-
most 2.
“I think everyone needs to
laugh,” said Ms. Nguyen-Huu, 39,
who works in the fashion industry
and lives in Brooklyn. “But we’ll
probably be careful who we send it
out to — we probably won’t send it
to people who have been affected
in a way where this would offend
them.”
As a workaround, Ms. Nguyen-
Huu will make a few different
cards by mixing and matching
photos and copy. In some images,
Ms. Nyugen-Huu and her husband
wear masks. Some show an ice
bucket filled with champagne and
Purell; others, a gift basket brim-
ming with Clorox wipes and toilet
paper. She’s toying with a few
messages, including “Celebrating
(at home) with the finest bottles of
alcohol” and a more sincere one
wishing recipients “a happy and
safe holiday season.” She is also
considering a “supersafe version”
with a traditional portrait and
greeting.
Mariam Naficy, Minted’s
founder and chief executive, said
the question of tone has added
weight for the independent artists
whose card designs are sold on
the site.“With so many people passing
away, we knew there was a line
that we could not cross,” she said.
“It’s a very subtle thing. We didn’t
want to be inappropriate because
we don’t want people to take this
lightly.”
Lizzie Post, an etiquette author
and the co-president of the Emily
Post Institute, thinks that’s a
question senders should think
about, too.
“I think if you’re making light of
the pandemic, you risk insulting
those who have families and loved
ones who’ve passed away,” Ms.
Post said. “But if you’re wearing
masks or showing social distanc-
ing as a sincere support for those
acts, I’m all behind you 100 per-
cent, and I think etiquette would
be behind you too.”
That will be Ms. Staten’s ap-
proach. Although she hasn’t or-
dered the cards from Costco yet,
she has drafted the following
greeting: “We’ve been diligently
wearing our masks and staying
socially distant this year, but we
miss you so much! Hope this card
finds you well and we can ex-
change big hugs soon!”Consider new messaging.Ms. Naficy has seen card designs
and messaging rise and fall with
external events; for example, the
word “peace” became popular
after the 2016 presidential elec-
tion. Now, she said, other trends
are emerging.
“On the more serious side,
‘hope’ is a very popular word, as is
‘gratitude,’ ” Ms. Naficy said.
“Then on the funny side, there are
a lot of people who are clearly
interested in the humorous take:
‘Our family has been through a lot,
I’m sure yours has, too.’ ”Even seemingly timeless mes-
sages (say, “Best Wishes for the
New Year”) have distinctly 2020
vibes (say, when paired by the
Minted artist Gwen Bedat with an
illustration of “CTRL+N,” a key-
board shortcut used to open a new
browser window or document).
Holiday messages on cards
available on Etsy range from
“Adios 2020” to references to
hand-washing. Another, by the
designer Tina Seamonster, shows
a dumpster fire emblazoned with
“2020,” along with two words
above it: “We Survived.”
“We’re constantly seeing
emerging inventory that reflect
the zeitgeist, and this year’s
holiday cards are no exception,”
said Dayna Isom Johnson, Etsy’s
trend expert.Don’t worry about
picture-perfect photographs.
All it took for Kristen Hope’s
holiday card to materialize was a
friend’s tweet depicting the enor-
mous disposable face mask adorn-
ing the facade of the Science
Museum of Virginia. The museum
is about 100 miles south of Ms.
Hope’s home in Arlington, Va.
“I thought, ‘Oh, that would
make a great Christmas card,’
especially because we didn’t
really do much in terms of family
vacations this year,” said Ms.
Hope, 48, a stay-at-home mother
of a 14-year-old and 12-year-old
twins. “We were bored one Satur-
day, so we grabbed our selfie
stick, jumped in the car, took a
photo, got back in the car and
drove home.”
A former research librarian who
diligently keeps her address list
up-to-date, Ms. Hope ordered
cards from Minted (“Happy Holi-
days From Our Quaranteam to
Yours”) and plans to send them
around Thanksgiving. Her only
regret? Leaving the backside
blank.
“I should have put a little as-
terisk that said: ‘We didn’t go
inside. We used a selfie stick. We
had our masks with us,’ ” she said.
Like Ms. Hope, Elise Miller has
always been a holiday-card devo-
tee. She has traditionally tapped a
photographer friend to shoot
bright, elegantly composed family
portraits.
By contrast, this year’s card,
which she purchased through
Minted, is a screenshot.
“We had been Zooming with our
family so much,” said Ms. Miller,
52, who works at the Conference
on World Affairs at the University
of Colorado, Boulder. “And one
day, I was looking at the screen
and I thought, ‘You know what,
we should just take a picture
because this would be a great
holiday card.’ ”
Four of five family members,
including the Millers’ 16-year-old
twins, beamed in from separate
rooms of their home in Boulder.
Their 20-year-old daughter, a
junior at Boulder, joined from her
off-campus apartment.
“The photo isn’t perfect, but
neither was the year,” Ms. Hope
said. “I’m trying to embrace the
fact that it’s the holidays, and this
year will be over. This year will be
over! And maybe we’ll have the
chance to start over.”You can still connect with loved ones near and far, and
mentioning the pandemic is OK. Just be mindful of your tone.
BY SARAH FIRSHEIN
Share the Joy
After a Hard Year
With Holiday Cards
Clockwise from top left: Jude Staten posing for his family’s holiday
card taken by the photographer Rachna Agrawal; an only-for-2020 card
option from Paperless Post; the Hope family’s holiday card; and
another option from Paperless Post.HAVING TROUBLE SLEEPINGlately? Racing thoughts?
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These shows are not current events- or pop culture-
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They do not seek to challenge you or stretch your
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these goofy podcasts to relax, unwind and giggle.‘MY BROTHER, MY BROTHER AND ME’
Three brothers from Huntington, W.Va. — Justin,
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AND SASHEER ZAMATA’Meet Sasheer Zamata, a former cast member of
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on the kind of things iconic best friends do, like get-
ting away with passing gas at work (pretty easy
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beautifully against Zamata’s more low-key, earthy
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chitchat to answering the most absurd quizzes the
internet has to offer, like “which Disney princess are
you based on the sushi roll you build.” PHOEBE LETTNADIA HAFIDLISTEN TO THESELaugh It Off
With Podcasts
Release leftover tension
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