A Hallmark Card
One of Kim’s favorite things about the holidays is to watch countless numbers of Hallmark holiday movies. Approximately 56 million people have access to the Hallmark Channel via their cable or satellite TV access. Since 2004, this cable channel has zeroed in on what is obviously a very powerful demographic. They really do two things throughout the year, produce and play holiday movies and mystery movies. I’m not sure why that combination works so well, but it does, and Kim is the target audience since she loves both. If they could acquire the rights to Dateline and house renovation shows they would have a death grip on her screen time. But at this time of year, she enjoys these schmaltzy and formulaic Hallmark holiday classics that have wholesome love lost and found stories that allow perhaps two kisses only for their protagonists, so it is classic romance without lust. It is also all about the holidays with a heavy dose of Christmas and heterosexual role play. I would bet that the percentage of non-Christian and non-heterosexual content is fairly equivalent to the percentages that those demographics enjoy in the American population. The family that owns Hallmark lives in Kansas City, so these folks are really all-American. In other words, Hallmark does not seem to be about making social statements, but rather to broadcast what their audience most wants…especially during the holidays.
I have previously written about my holiday card annual process, but I need to return to that topic for this story. I have the advantage of having written my friend Frank O’Connell’s biography (Jump First, Think Fast) and since he was, for a time, the CEO of Gibson Greetings, the number three greeting card company, I am aware that Hallmark is by far the market leader in greeting cards, matched only by American Greetings, the company that ultimately acquired Gibson. First of all, let me mention that not everyone sends holiday cards, but we, as Americans do send 1.3 billion of them each year. Since Hallmark claims that 73% of us send holiday cards, that means that on average we send 5.4 cards per person or, let’s say using the average household size of 3.13, that we send, on average, about 17 cards per household. We, as a family unit of 2, send about 220 cards, so we are either or both 13X more schmaltzy or popular than the average American family. I’m sure that there is an economic factor that weighs in on that since I think my per card cost this year is going to run to about $4 per card sent. That is so high because we have customized cards printed with pre-printed envelopes and then holiday “forever” stamps, all of which adds up.
Every year, our card returns probably number about 5% or a dozen cards where the friends have either moved or chosen to return our cards. You probably think I am kidding about the return of cards, but we actually have one friend in our motorcycle group that I have known for twenty-five years, who got very mad at me a few years ago and both withdrew from the group (he was aging out anyway) and literally withdrew from our friendship. I know for a fact that he has not moved, but still, his card was returned to me like a bad pop song, “Return to Sender”. I was truly the innocent attempted peacemaker in the offending event, but so it goes sometimes. When I get cards returned, I have to decide if its time to stop sending them or if I need to get an address update. To a certain extent, I feel like I need to take a hint if someone chooses to move and not send me a change of address card of some sort. This year I got out ahead of things and sent out about five emails to get address updates and got back four replies. Again, if someone does not want to send me their new address, I really should take that as a strong hint and drop them from my list.
Well, this year, we had a very new and inspiring thing happen. The venture capital fund that I co-founded twenty-three years ago had me and four partners. I remain quite close with two of those four and visit with them regularly. The other two not so much, even though things have remained cordial. The one who I was least connected to is a guy who used to live in New Jersey. I had his New Jersey address and have faithfully sent him a holiday card for each of those twenty-three years, including this year. I choose not to track who sends me cards during the holiday season (we get plenty, but I would guess less than what we send), so I don’t know whether we have gotten cards from that ex-partner over the past few years. That would not normally stop me from sending my greetings anyway.
Yesterday, Kim got several calls and then a text from a New Jersey number that she did not recognize. With all the Google Business Listing, Medicare Supplemental Plan and Home Energy Improvement spam calls we all get, it is no wonder that Kim did not respond to the calls from an unknown New Jersey call. But the text caught her eye. It said, “Hey Kim, I got your Christmas Card, can you give me a call?” Kim knew that I had already sent my cards (she is still way behind on that as usual), so she responded, “Who is this?” The response was that that was a long and funny story and that she should just call so he could explain. As I said, Kim loves a good mystery, so she texted.
It seems that for the past eleven years, I have been sending a holiday card to my ex-partner in New Jersey and the card has not been returned to me, but has rather gone to a new family that lives at that address. The ex-partner’s last name is Ramsey. The new family is Joe & Denise Riley. The post office just delivered the card, presumably assuming the last name was misspelled. Well, for eleven years, Joe and Denise have been tracking our lives through our holiday cards, watching us age and vicariously enjoying our travels and family doings. I imagine it has become a very fun family joke for them, so this year, Joe decided to research us online and came up with Kim’s phone number and hence the outreach. He explained all of this to Kim and they had a good laugh about it. The Riley’s say they have been enjoying our antics all these years. They ended up texting a picture of the two of them. That’s when Kim told him that they are now on our holiday card list. And then when he told her it was like a Hallmark Holiday Movie, Kim was immediately smitten. It seems one of their sons was in a Hallmark Holiday Movie, which is one of Kim’s fondest wishes for her theatrical swan song. Joe used to be an actor. Denise is a musician (a flautist). Both of their sons are actors. Kim established that we are all kindred spirits and asked that they send us a holiday card so we could hear more of their lives. She also invited them to come and visit us in San Diego. Joe ended the texting by telling Kim to “Give Rich our love.” It doesn’t get more Hallmark than that.