An ambassador's holiday card like no other Posted at 12:36 PM ET, 12/20/2012 Greetings from our man in Finland. There are traditional holiday cards and then there are non-traditional cards. There surely are none more non-traditional than the one sent out by our man in Finland, Ambassador Bruce Oreck. Oreck, a lawyer and son of famed vacuum cleaner manufacturer David Oreck, was a major Obama bundler and Democratic contributor before getting the appointment to Helsinki. He's also a former professional bodybuilder, and known amongst his friends to be somewhat irrepressible. So when one friend got the muscle-man's holiday card a few days ago, he took it to be the official embassy card and thought Oreck had indeed "lost his mind." But then he opened the "official" embassy card - which features Oreck and his wife in formal attire - and realized "it was just Bruce being Bruce." As another Oreck friend noted: "Bruce has a great sense of humor." The gag card, we were told, had a limited distribution to his friends. Oreck's also an adventurous sort, once hitching a ride with a Finnish Air Force pilot to cruise in an F-18D Hornet and recounting the trip in his online journal. And lest there be any question, we checked with embassy spokesman David McGuire, who assured us "there is no photo- shopping: that is his real arm." Oreck, we were told, "places tremendous emphasis on staying in shape." The photo is taken from a recent shoot Oreck did with ProBody Magazine, a Finnish fitness publication. ." . .The ProBody article was about his philosophy that 60 is the new 40 and maintaining fitness has become all the more important," McGuire said, adding that Oreck "is a big man with an outsized personality to match," making him "an extremely popular ambassador" in Finland. As one Oreck pal said: "If you had arms like that you would run a sleeveless picture of yourself in every column!" Well, we prefer not to show off.