In good years I make my own Christmas cards, a simple black-and-white cartoon of my own creation. One year the drawing showed a couple standing by their mailbox, the man reading a letter and saying to his wife: “The Wilsons rejected my Christmas card.”
This year I sent to my non-religious friends (which is the vast majority of them) postcards of my book, playing on the title. The Joys of Travel, pronounced the front; “And the joys of the season,” I scribbled on the back.
A few days ago I worried that it had not been in very good taste, using a religious holiday to promote my book. But it wasn’t really to promote my book – everyone I sent a card to already knew of the book’s existence – it was to share the beautiful picture on the cover, which, appropriate to the season, features a snow-covered mountain.
It also occurred to me that lots of young parents make cards with pictures of their children on them, children who are often far from celestial. And for authors, our books are our children.
