Making Cards for Jewish Holidays — Hanukkah Cards a la Carte

By Oliver B. Pollak, Ph.D.

RICHMOND, California — Hanukkah is virtually here. You have no cards. Oy vey. Think creatively. Repurpose and recycle those New Year and Passover greeting cards you got as donation inducements from the myriad of worthy Jewish charities.

Hanukkah is after all a holiday when you make do with what you don’t have, and it is sufficient to carry through for a week and a day.

If a six branched candelabra does not feel right, take another card, cut off two menorah branches and glue them on the six brancher. You will be applauded for your innovation. If the card is blank inside, create a script. Your computer is a marvel with selecting a variety of type fonts, choreographing type sizes, and splashing the text with a panoply of colors. Centering, hard left and right margins, and staggering your message typographically in steps will show the recipient your unusual efforts.

Ed Goodman, a Hallmark Cards sales and marketing executive, became a legend in 1944 when he  wrote on a 3 x 5 card, “When you care enough to send the very best.” You can surpass this with thoughtfulness, imagination, scissors, glue, time, patience, and unique sensibility. Purchase the candles, our candle making aspirations ended in the 1970s.

Your good work will show in the smiles of the recipients, especially is there is a check inside the envelope. So, to readers and improvisors, “Happy H.” Light the candles, savor the latkes, enjoy this calendrically chilliest and darkest time of the year, unless you are in the antipodes.

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Oliver B. Pollak, Ph.D., J.D., professor emeritus of history at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, a lawyer, and a member of the Institute of Historical Study, is a correspondent based in Richmond, California. He may be contacted at oliver.pollak@sdjewishworld.com.