Crappy Holidays. This year’s holiday card is a downer. No, it’s fun. No, it’s funny. I don’t know.

The backstory: My friend Scott Matthews drew a funny Trumpian poop emoji. I thought it would make a good custom postage stamp for our holiday cards—just to inject a little sass.

Zazzle, however, rejected the design. They gave a few different reasons. The first, a very vague notice: “Design includes material that is not suitable for printing on custom postage.”

Then, a little more detail from their guidelines: “May not… Incorporate a celebrity, current or former leader, politician, religious figure, convicted criminal or notorious person, or other famous person’s name or likeness.” …which I can only assume means they recognized Donald Trump in a pile of poop.

I actually emailed asking exactly what was the problem with what was essentially a common emoji. They said: “In this instance, Zazzle cannot produce postage stamps with bodily functions.”

OK.

Since the picture couldn’t be a little stamp in the corner, Diane suggested it be the whole card. End of story.

Except for the poem I wrote to go inside:

’Twas a few weeks before Christmas, but in the ol’ Keaggy house
We ran out of postage stamps, and then we did grouse.
A solution was needed—and a solution we had:
Make custom holiday stamps on Zazzle¹; that would be rad!

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While Republicans in D.C. ripped their futures to shreds.²
Mama listened to podcasts, the ‘Walking Dead’ I did start;
Then we ordered some stamps with funny poop Emoji art.³

When in my Gmail inbox arose such a clatter,
Actually, I didn’t see it until later (most emails I get just don’t matter).
Your order “Cannot be processed,” “Your designs are in conflict,”
“With Zazzle’s content guidelines,”—and they are very strict!⁴

Climate change had prevented any new-fallen snow,
So in those days before Christmas we felt very low.
When, what in my wandering brain should appear,
But an idea! (it was Diane’s)—“Use the stamp for our card this year!”

So I fired up Photoshop on the laptop real quick,
I screenshotted the rejection, pasted it down with a click.
More rapid than eagles attacking Trump⁵ I designed,
I whistled, and shouted, and made cards just in time!

Now, Bannon! now, Conway! Sanders! Sessions! Don Jr.!
On, McConnell! on, Ivanka! Flynn! Manafort! and, Kushner!
High treason’s⁶ no joke—and, Mueller? He’s on the ball;
He might just lock away! lock away! lock away all!⁷

And then, in a twinkling, the card it was done;
With a big Trumpoopmoji, stamped right on the front.
His orangeness, now browned to a rich, turdly glow,
His combover combed-over, so his hatred did show.

What you can’t see are the Big Macs, stacked all over his desk,
KFC, FOX TV, spray tan cans, so grotesque.
Nor his too-long necktie,⁸ down the billionaire’s great round belly,
That shakes when he lies—just like Russian Meat Jelly.⁹

He was chubby and plump, a right-wing racist old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
How’d he win an election? A reality TV star? How dumb!
The real ‘Nightmare Before Christmas…’ WTF have we done?

Still, we sprang to our sleigh to mail our holiday cards,
Alas! We had no stamps… (We got Zazzle’d so hard).
Then I heard him exclaim, driving his golf cart out of sight,¹⁰
“MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL… NO!—just to the FAR- and ALT-RIGHT!”

Happy Holidays, everyone! It’s our first holiday card with footnotes!

1. https://www.zazzle.com/custom/stamps
2. https://nyti.ms/2l082Nw
3. https://instagr.am/wscottmatthews/ (Thank you, Scott!)
4. https://help.zazzle.com/hc/en-us/articles/219592828
5. https://youtu.be/o7_OWYrLVOU?t=25s
6. http://wapo.st/trump-putin
7. http://www.trumpindictmentbingo.com/
8. https://youtu.be/SYoOPgeTMQc
9. http://www.recipestudio.com/2010/11/meat-jelly-kholodets.html
10. http://trumpgolfcount.com/