It Was The Best Of The Worst Of Times

We were so young and the world was a much more hopeful place.

This was a drawing from a simpler, more innocent time. Wayne and I met in November 1987 and our first real collaboration landed about a month later, when I asked him to draw an idea I had for a Christmas card which I couldn’t do myself because I couldn’t even draw badly and was hard-pressed to try my hand at Photoshopping my idea, if for no other reason than I didn’t have a computer and that Photoshop didn’t exist yet.

Wayne and I took my embryo of an idea and we sussed it out together, and brought it to fruition. We wanted to evoke an era when Norman Rockwell was the artist-in-residence at all of our Christmases and his poignant illustrations reminded us of community, family, and the possibilities inherent in the American Dream.

Sure, it wasn’t easy, in the wake of the worst stock market crash in American history, with a discredited President in the waning days of his administration (though not leaving soon enough for many people’s tastes), with unemployment soaring, and America’s pre-eminent economists portending an economic crisis as the most serious we’ve seen since the 1930s.

Thank God those dark memories are a tiny speck in our rearview.

But even in these different times, we have new challenges.

That’s why today, in December 2008, we believe it’s important to remember those uncertain times 21 Christmases ago, and how we rose above. I know our vintage holiday card seems a bit quaint and Pollyanna in retrospect, but now, as then, we want to remind our own friends and family–and now, our many, many Internet friends–of the hope of a Christmas that was all about snow and pajamas and presents and stockings on the mantle, and the possibility of a tomorrow every bit as bright and warm and promising as all those idyllic Christmases of our youth.

Happy holidays, to you and yours, from the Veeps.us family.