Remembering Old Christmas Cards--Part I

 

In 2006, Roland and I visited the ruins of Ephesus in Turkey. While we were at the nearby museum, we saw a broken statue of Caesar Augustus, and Roland took the photo at the top of this blog post. In 2010 we turned it into a Christmas card, and that began a tradition of making our own cards, mostly from photos I took on our travels.

The next two blog posts reminisce about them and send you those greetings from the past.

2010

Roland suggested the first card. Neither of us remember the exact circumstances, but a note inside that card attributes the idea for the content to Dr. Paul L. Maier, who died earlier this year. A Professor of Ancient History at Western Michigan University and a prolific author, he gave a talk about Biblical history at our church and made a joke about it being “Caesar’s greetings” that brought Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem.  So that first card had the above photo and the words “Caesar’s Greetings” on the outside and the text of Luke 2:1-7 on the inside. The message is longer than I want to quote here, but Verse 1 sets the stage. It reads, “In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.” ¹

2011

Roland and I attend St. Paul’s Lutheran in Munster, Indiana, which has an indoor nativity scene that has graced the chancel every Advent for decades. Kathryn took a picture of it in 2008, and we used it for our 2011 Christmas card. The inside verse was John 1:1, which says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

2012

In 2012, we used my images from 2010, when Caroline and Pete took us to see the Way of Lights at Our Lady of Snows in Belleville, Illinois. The picture is actually two photos stacked one above the other, and we also used two verses that were not next to each other but, taken together, make it clear that Jesus is the Light of the world. (See John 1:5 and John 8:12.)

2013

Over a decade ago, we purchased a ceramic cross with the nativity scene in it, and it has been hanging on the wall in our kitchen ever since. For want of a better idea, we used it for our 2013 Christmas card. The verse was the well-known John 3:16-17, which, like the cross in the picture, reminds us that Jesus came to die for us.

2014

When we went to visit Caroline and Pete for our 2013 family Christmas, Roland and I took a side trip to Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, and visited the Church of Ste. Genevieve, which had a really cool indoor nativity scene. It was too late to use a photo for that year’s Christmas card, but it was also too cool to ignore, so we used it in 2014. That year’s scripture was Galatians 4:4-5, which says, "But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.”

2015

In 2015, Roland and I took a river cruise from Budapest to Amsterdam, with a post-cruise visit to France. I took numerous photos of the art displayed at the Louvre Museum in Paris, including the one that became that year’s Christmas card. The image is “The Nativity and the Announcement to the Shepherds” by Bernardino Luini (1480-1532), and the verse was Luke 2:11, “For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”

2016

Our son-in-law Pete took a call to Trinity Lutheran Church in Millstadt, Illinois, in 2014, and I took this photo of the church’s outdoor nativity scene when we visited them that Christmas. Since it was too late to use it for 2014 and we had art from the Louve for 2015, the Trinity Lutheran nativity scene didn’t show up on a Christmas card until 2016. The verse was Isaiah 9:6, which is well-known from its use in Handel’s Messiah. It says, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

2017

We had a wealth of images from our trip to France in 2015, so we made use of another one in 2017. It’s not from the Louve, however. The stained-glass window portraying the flight to Egypt is from a church in Normandy. The scripture was Matthew 2:14-15, which describes how Joseph, Mary, and Jesus fled to Egypt when Herod sought to kill the baby.

Next week I’ll describe the rest of our Christmas cards, beginning in 2018.

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¹ All scriptures are quoted from the English Standard Version of the Bible.