Why send a Christmas card when you can send a 100-foot-tall gif?
This Saturday, everyone in the world can send a gif that will be projected onto two buildings in San Francisco, as well as sent to the recipient by e-mail.
Christmas cards have become a little stale.
The same anodyne messages, the same vacuous wishes, the same pictures of Santa Claus and red-eyed, possibly inebriated reindeer.
How can you truly express the vast breadth of your seasonal altruism in a mere paper card or some standard digital gesture?
This Saturday through Monday, you have a chance to raise your Christmas cards to a different scale. Two buildings in San Francisco will be the backdrop for 100-foot-tall gifs that will feature people's deepest wishes.
Buildings at 687 and 785 Market Street will host a constant flow of Times Square-like projections that will say things like: "Wishing you a wonderful Christmas. So glad you and your boneheaded husband won't be traveling those 200 miles to ruin our Christmas dinner."
Well, that was just one potential example.
The so-called "Gif The Halls" is the brainchild of WP Engine, the WordPress hosting platform, in merry conjunction with the San Francisco Film Commission and the Gray Area Foundation. (And engineering by 10up.)
You can choose your own designs on the Gif The Halls site. Each design was created by a Bay Area digital artist.
Once you've placed your huge wishes in the queue, a moving image of the "card," with San Francisco as its background, is also sent by e-mail to the recipient.
Christmas is less about giving than bragging. So what could better say: "I'm so very fantastic and I just want you to see how very fantastic I am" than a 100-foot-tall gif?
Christmas gifts are out. Christmas gifs are in. You heard it here first.