While there are debates about the exact meaning of ancient cave paintings, one school of thought is the drawings depict everyday events in the lives of the artists, perhaps as a way of telling the story of their lives to the entire clan.
Think of them as ancient selfies, or a way for the hunter/gatherer of the tribe to explain why he would have been home earlier, but it was a tough day at the mastodon hunt and traffic on the 105 was backed up all the way to the tar pit.
I have a different theory, which is based on my years of study, or of at least having to go to the dentist's office once a year and sitting near a bunch of back copies of "National Geographic."
Those ancient cave paintings? Prehistoric Christmas cards.
Look carefully. That's Ogg and Umga, complete with Grandpa Orga and the kids. And the saber-toothed tiger, which was considered a family pet. Until it ate Grandma.
So if my theory holds true (and I have no reason to believe it will), we have a new, benevolent explanation for one of history's mysteries. And we also have proof the family Christmas card picture has endured, largely unchanged through ions of time. Just like cockroaches.
Family Christmas card pictures actually serve two purposes. First, they preserve for all time that beautiful moment when your entire immediate clan was together, frozen in all their loving glory.
Second, they're a great way to embarrass the heck out of your kids. And it's even better when girlfriends or boyfriends are involved. Ah, the magic of matching plaid and those cute little bowties.
However, the Christmas family photo brings with it special opportunities for either immortality or epic disaster. Or both. Because, like a charging water buffalo, you only get one shot at it. And if things don't work out, goring is the least of your worries.
That's because the difference between expectation and execution is never more clearly illustrated than when your wife's hopes and dreams of a Ralph Lauren-themed Christmas card, complete with excessive denim and corduroy and Kennedy-esque hair, meets the realities of your family. Who are, decidedly, not the Kennedys.
Or, maybe they are. I mean, who knows? Perhaps the two oldest, Ralph Lauren-clad Kennedy children started punching at each other while the youngest stopped dragging an electric eggbeater around long enough to start bouncing up and down in the picture frame, totally obscuring his sister, who insisted on having the cat in the photo but also insisted on holding it upside down. Which, strangely enough, doesn't seem to bother the cat all that much. Go figure.
I mean, this could happen.
It explains why most people cave under the pressure (or at least the anticipation of the pressure) and opt for a collection of carefully selected and Photoshopped pictures taken during the year and totally lacking in fist fights, upside-down cats or eggbeaters.
And it explains why most Christmas cards feature a totally un-Yule-like combination of shorts, tans and more shoreline than Minnesota.
Either that, or they are composed of carefully posed pictures of all the siblings, dressed in their casual finest. No parents are present in these pictures because a) someone has to take the picture and b) someone has to be standing right behind the photographer, threatening all the subjects with some very unholiday-like happenings if they don't quit holding bunny ears up in back of each other's heads. I'm sure Ansel Adams had that problem all the time.
And since we tend to swim upstream in these sorts of things, we usually go full-bore Christmas glory, complete with children wrapped in strings of lights and lined up, carefully, in front of the tree.
These start off as a family picture and end up as the holiday edition of Wrestlemania. Complete with someone swinging a folding chair. OK, maybe not.
So, this Christmas, take a moment to examine that mound of family Christmas cards you got. Look for the telltale signs -- the death grip a mother has on someone's potentially unruly arm. The fact that the father's smile is actually masking the hissing "direction" through his teeth that anyone step out of line and Santa's displeasure is going to be the least of his worries.
And then take a look at your family's card. It's all there; the impending sense of a battle brewing, the upside down cat. The eggbeater. And if you look very, very closely, you can even see the saber-toothed tiger. Some things never change.
Merry Christmas. You made it through another year. And another photo.
GARY SMITH IS A RECOVERING JOURNALIST LIVING IN ROGERS.
Commentary on 12/25/2014