I know you put a lot of effort into getting your Christmas card photo just right. I’m sure it’s great this year. You probably went to a professional studio and wore Santa Claus hats with ugly sweaters that you deemed acceptable in an ironic way. It’s just that we’re a family of demigods and our card is going to blow yours out of the fucking water.

You might as well not take a picture. Write your cards out with a message no one will read using your hands (even if I did that, I would do it better by writing it on a scroll). If anything, people will be glad you didn’t waste their time shoving your average human family in their faces. They can more easily enjoy what half-human/half-god children bring to the table. Their eyes are a pale shade of greenish-gold you could only find in the rain forests of a distant planet located solely in my dreams. Their skin has the glow of a hundred supernovas exploding over a clear blue ocean of sapphires, which is what your oceans used to look like before your species filled them with garbage. Even their postures are flawless. Their limb flexibility is like a ballerina crossed with the most graceful animal from my home world, the pondurin (you’ve never seen it but trust me). Unless your kids are the descendants of a human and an immortal being, I suggest you pack it in.

You and your offspring are probably wearing matching pajamas that say something like NO CHRISTMAS LIKE SNOW CHRISTMAS or TEAM NICE LIST or DEFECATION COLLECTOR WAS AT CAPACITY. I’m sure they’re borderline cute until you see the pajamas worn by me and my family of demigods. Ours were custom-made by my ethereal spinster aunts. These unmarried super-beings used the wool of a lamb-like creature found on a planet that technically will not exist for thousands of years. The wool makes itself warmer if you request it out loud. An ancient saying is printed on the front that roughly translates to WE ARE MIGHTY, WE ARE PROUD, WE ARE CHRISTMAS.

Did you drive to a Christmas tree farm for your photo? We were going to do that but decided it would be a lot nicer if we made a forest from scratch. That way we could control tree spacing, height, fullness — everything a family of demigods would want to show off around the holidays. It did require a lot of decision-making. That’s one of the tough parts about putting out an amazing Christmas card. Designing every snowflake that gets caught in your flowing locks of hair is pretty tiring, even for us. Then there’s controlling the wind. You don’t want to give your head the appearance of being stuck in a snowbank like on the mountain where you were birthed from stone being hit by lightning.

If it makes you feel better, we did have a small problem during our photo shoot. Our photographer, Glenn, was stuck in traffic during the so-called power hour, which is that 60-minute period before the flaming gas ball is no longer visible from your planetary geolocation. The light looks quite flattering then and it would have been a shame to not look as amazing as possible, but we found a solution. My daughter held up the Earth’s rotation a few hours and made that golden light available until Glenn arrived. Crisis averted. It makes me so proud when my kids use their demigod powers to save Christmas and make you humans look worse. Glenn is a pretty good guy, though.

Some people wonder why we even send out Christmas cards. They think my being an ancient deity conflicts with the birth of a baby deity thousands of years later. To them I reply, isn’t the whole point of your Christmas to be inclusive and get together and be competitive and send out photographs of your superior family composed of three demigod children and a smoking hot Earth wife? Sounds like you just want the best team in the league to be ruled unfit to play.

Sometimes I think it would be nice to not have the burden of putting out such an epic Christmas card. A simple human would feel adequate getting a nine to five job, having his family make a snowman that he could not bring to life, and hanging up lights on a house not made from the bones of underworld soldiers he killed. Then I come to my senses (we ancient gods have a reputation for partying) and vow to create the most amazing Christmas card in the world yet again.

You can try again next year if you wish. You can go the we’re-all-drinking-cocoa-and-laughing route or stack yourselves on top of each other because, I don’t know, that’s fun? But you won’t be able to match a family of demigods. Oh, and next year we’re getting a puppy.