To Their 4,000 Dearest Friends

The Clintons and the Gores sent season’s greetings. But we didn’t hear from the Bushes or Cheneys.

On the home front, Los Angeles mayoral hopeful Antonio Villaraigosa and family wished us all the best, but apparently we didn’t make Mayor Dick Riordan’s A-list. Nor Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley’s.

Bah, humbug! Don’t Republicans send holiday cards to members of the Fourth Estate?

Arianna Huffington does. Lots and lots of them. But then, the author, commentator and Shadow Convention host is, in reality, a recovering Republican. Huffington, like many people in public life, sends out cards each year to a couple of thousand of her closest friends.

This year’s cards were lovely, with doe-eyed daughters Christina and Isabella, 9 and 11, gracing the cover in matching burgundy gowns and shawls. Inside, some of the cards offered warm holiday wishes from the girls and their divorced parents, Arianna and Michael. Even the pets--Snowflake the cat, and bunnies Sugar and Spice--joined in.

Other cards omitted the ex and the pets.

Huffington explained that the girls wanted to include their father and pets in cards sent to family friends and schoolmates. Because of an envelope-stuffing mix-up, journalists with last names beginning with A or B received the card that included season’s greetings from the extended clan.

We were relieved to learn that we hadn’t been dissed by our local civic leaders. Spokespersons for Riordan and Cooley said they didn’t send cards this year.

Our nonscientific study indicated that people in the political arena love to send those family-values cards.

“I was blessed with a mother whose love brought me joy and comfort as a child, and her spirit continues to guide my life today,” Villaraigosa wrote to one and all. “As a parent, I strive to share that same love with my own children, family and friends,” he added, sounding very much like someone running for office.

The Gores decided to hit a beach in the Carolinas for this year’s holiday card. The result: suntanned, shorts-clad Gores galore, but nary a sprig of pine nor holly. And we can’t help but wonder whether it’s time for their eldest, Karenna Gore Schiff, now a wife and mother, to hit the local Hallmark store on her own.

Some show-biz types played it simple. Oprah’s card pictured snow angels and the message “Spread the Joy.” The Amazing Kreskin opted for a golden, gift-laden sleigh and “loving thoughts and best wishes” from “Kreskin and Mom.”

Hugh Hefner passed on the bunnies and the jammies for this year’s card. Instead, cartoonist Edward Sorel drew him in “Casablanca” style--in black tie, with a love-struck femme dangling around his neck, at the bar of “Rick’s Cafe American.”

The Clintons’ card suggests family values minus the family. Sox the cat and Buddy the dog were curled up in the White House’s Yellow Oval Room, complete with Christmas tree and nutcracker. But there were no people. Everybody must be packing. A close inspection revealed that the Clinton cards were paid for by the Democratic National Committee. With that kind of backing, we could have gotten our cards out in time, too.

Robert and Vera Goulet went formal, decking themselves instead of the halls. They looked so good, they wanted you to see them twice--on the cover and inside. He wore a black tux. She even had a wardrobe change between shots.

Lynda and Stewart Resnick, of Franklin Mint and Teleflora fame, won points for the most creative and hilarious greeting card. They dressed up--or shall we say, down--as Adam and Eve.

The card accompanied gift boxes of navel oranges, pomegranates and pistachios from the Resnicks’ own California-based Paramount Orchards. The couple sends these gift boxes to 4,000 of their nearest and dearest.

“I’ve done these crazy cards for 15 years,” said Lynda Resnick, who starts worrying about the card in July. This year, she said, the addition of the pomegranates to the gift crates inspired the Garden of Eden theme: “If only Eve had offered Adam a pomegranate instead of an apple . . . every day could have been a holiday!”

She took great pains to point out that while frisky, the cards involved no nudity. Both she and Stewart wore body stockings.

“The only navels in that whole present are in the oranges.”