2021
 


 

    

Santa is telling us that the gift of life should not be thrown away. 

Life should be respected, cherished, and protected.

Covid and its children have taken more of our neighbors
than the Civil War and the Spanish flu combined.

  Other millions have survived after suffering the worst month of their lives. 

Still other "long-haulers" are suffering to this day.

The quarantines and lockdowns are beginning again. 

Covid will not end until we all do to it what it has been doing to us.

This will take self-discipline.  Failure is not an option.

  

We hope to see all of our friends and neighbors safe and well by next Christmas.

 

 

   

This year was especially difficult, because our Internet service shut down, and had to be replaced with a cable-based system.  Our email had to be scrapped and rebuilt...

 

    

 

     When we were again online, a web search for material gave us this shot--Santa with a mask.

 
   

     What if he were holding a vax passport instead of a toy?
   

    

 

Jade and I have to get in on the act somehow.

 

How about masked elves?
     Another search gave us the elves, and I inserted our faces, and then inserted the elves.

 
         Then came a lot of touch-up.  First, Santa got the Photoshop dry brush filter, to make him look more like a painting.  The vax card was left sharp, and the elf clothing.
   

     The elf faces got the same DB treatment, though to a lesser degree.

     The darken shadows filter was applied to make all of them seem more multi-dimensional, and integrated into the frame.

     Then the inscription was applied at the bottom twice, to make a drop-shadow.  

     Jade said that the best cartoons are those without a caption, so we decided to keep it simple.

     If you have to explain the joke, then it isn't funny.

 

       Finally, after a trip to the ink-and-paper store, we published various versions including:

       A double, which you see above.  It is sized to fit inside a  6 X 9 envelope. 

       A large single sheet for our front door, where all the Christmas cards are hung. 

       And a small Internet version, for E-mailing and posting on this web page.

 

 

 
 
 

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