The Kardashian Christmas cards that reveal the ghosts of Khristmases past

PAGING RICK DECKARD … And so to the latest Kardashian Khristmas Kard, which really ought to be captioned Nine Replicants in Search of a Blade Runner. Set in post-apocalyptic contemporary culture, the image of reality TV's ultimate nuclear family was shot on a $250,000 budget by tedious artiste David LaChappelle, a man who has about as much to say as a photographer as Guy Ritchie does as a film director. Convention demands we style the image's sledgehammer references to celebrity culture and the Illuminati as "a wry nod" to various internet obsessions and conspiracies – just as convention demands we declare the card part of a rich family tradition. The Kardashians, you see, have been at this for years, with the images growing slicker and more alarming as time goes by. To flick through the yuletide annals – made available to several gazillion of their closest friends and a full gamut of entertainment media outlets – is to watch their transformation from gimlet-eyed blended family to endtimes entertainment behemoth.

Behold, a typical effort from the 1990s, which calls to mind one of those movie scenes where the hero wakes up in the afterlife and everything's white. Rather than heaven, of course, the presence of multiple Kardashians would indicate that the deceased had awoken in some 11th circle of hell – shortly after its denizens had been ripped off by a Scottish tie salesman. Still, the image serves a useful purpose in that it reminds us that when Kardashian materfamilias Kris embarked on her second marriage to former athlete Bruce Jenner, he actually brought a few blonde kids from his earlier marriages to combine with Kris's dark-haired brood. Who are they? Why have they gradually been disappeared from the festive tableau? And where are they kept now? (Incidentally, collectors of secret celebrity cameos may care to know that Father Khristmas in this snap is played by Daniel Day-Lewis.)

Fast forward to 2007, a bit of an annus horribilis for the Kardashians, as I'm afraid this wasn't the first of the first out-of-focus imagery of Kim to be released that year. Not that you'd know it from a snap that might be captioned "What sex tape?" Still, good to see that the purge of the blonde children was almost done at this stage.

Expulsions complete, the Kardashians are finally free in 2008 to announce themselves as a serious entertainment force. The look they're going for seems to be "Vanity Fair gatefold cover", like the one the mag wheels out for its Young Hollywood issue, in which a selection of surefire also-rans are windbaggily predicted to be the next generation of megastars. Some day, sooner than you think, that issue will be shelved in favour of a dedicated Young Kardashians, in which the latest kohort from Kris's apparently infinite army is showcased for whichever remaining humans have not fled to escape from it all in Earth's catacombs.

The more you study the mood leap between the 2008 and 2010 cards, the more 2009 feels like a fascinating lacuna. Was some kind of happiness-bane ingested? Did Satan begin collecting early on his deal with them? Either way, the Kardashians of 2010 look darker, harder and altogether emptier – the kind of family Aaron Spelling might have conceived in a malarial hallucination. This year's standout is the toddling manchild who – it is written – will one day destroy them all.

As for where they'd go from here, 2011's card was slightly Moorish – if not altogether more-ish. Four airbrushers would die in harness on its production, sparking a public outcry that would ultimately lead to new laws limiting the hours any indentured retoucher can spend inhaling nebulous droplets of Festive Flawless.

For 2012, the Kardashians went with the most oddly disturbing party snap since the last shot of The Shining, which depicts Jack Nicholson smiling out from the Overlook hotel 4 July ball, decades before the horrors he has just wrought. Bruce – who by now resembled Doctor Who's Cassandra dragging up as Bruce – would soon be separated from Kris, laying the ground for LaChappelle's shot this year, which finds the ousted man of the house miserably encased in a cylinder marked "cashier" while a well-endowed mannequin wears his sporting medals. Lovely people. Quite what further horror the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come could possibly show us is unfathomable, but doubtless the Kardashians will come up with something.

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