Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s attempt to spread the festive cheer turned into a turkey after social media users mocked his new Christmas card.
Blair issued his annual Christmas card on Monday. It features a photo of him, with a forced grimace on his face, standing next to his wife Cherie alongside the caption “Season’s Greetings.”
The unnatural-looking smile quickly became the source of online derision.
The strange thing about Tony Blair’s Christmas card is how the teeth seem to follow you round the room. pic.twitter.com/UXUL2pAY5u
— Carl Maxim (@carlmaxim) December 1, 2014
Their Christmas card suggests that Cherie Blair’s been dead for weeks and Tony’s straining from the effort of holding up her embalmed body
— nash jenkins (@pnashjenkins) December 1, 2014
I like how Tony Blair’s Christmas card is really nice and definitely not terrifying/the stuff of nightmares: pic.twitter.com/9TXQccicZE
— Marie Le Grinch (@youngvulgarian) December 1, 2014
Other users decided to do their own version of the card.
Some took the opportunity for some — admittedly outdated — political satire. User @GeneralBoles superimposed Blair’s successor Gordon Brown’s face onto Blair’s and tweeted “Come on Tony, it’s my turn,” a reference to Brown waiting for Blair to step down as prime minister and repeatedly telling him, “It’s my turn now.”
Others took the culture route, with @Rowland72James superimposing the couple’s faces onto Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, while @garboy photoshopped their faces onto the notoriously unsmiling Grant Wood painting “American Gothic.”
When asked about the card, a spokesperson for Blair’s office told CNN: “We do not ‘officially’ release the card, cards are sent to their friends and colleagues, which doesn’t seem to me to be that unusual a process let alone one which merits such interest.”