The Christmas Card Adventures

Ahhh the holiday season…the perfect chance to spend time with your family, reflect on the year that has past and a new year that is beginning. It’s also a chance to make sure that everyone you know gets the perfect Christmas card portraying your happy family.

This year, we made a very critical mistake in the world of Christmas Card etiquette…we didn’t order enough, and we didn’t realize that we didn’t order enough (you know we were only short by 40 cards) until we went WWE over the last remaining card.

Alright, we didn’t really wrestle over the last remaining card, but I thought the visual image of Jenn jumping off the dining room table like she was on the top ropes of the ring to grab the final card out of my hand was pretty amusing. Actually the scene played out more like Jenn felt bad and gave me the last card because I was slower to get started and had not been able to send as many out. And who said procrastination is a bad thing?

Jenn planned ahead though and ordered some pictures that we could send in regular cards if we didn’t have enough…the only problem is that the pictures still haven’t shown up…so now we are just back to being inept Christmas Card senders…sorry.

I think Christmas cards would probably be more perfect if all pictures were candid and you only got one chance to get it right. This year I have seen some great pictures from friends as their kids scream (in delight) to get their picture taken with Santa…and it inspired me.

As happy as we are, and as truly blessed as I feel, our family is far from perfect and trying to get an 18 month old to sit patiently and smile takes a little camera magic and a lot of patience.

This year it took a few toys, some seashells (that almost doubled as lunch), Teresa swinging around a book on a string like a crazy person, a crazy 8 oz monkey on a leash, some smelly flamingos, Christmas ornaments that served as dodgeballs and Don on automatic shutter (producing about 300 pictures in less than a minute) to create our Christmas card.

So I thought I would share with you a few of our more memorable outtakes to brighten your holiday season…

Jenn looks scared as her Dad tries to work our camera, Nolin decides to eat a shell and I am just standing there…oh yeah check out our friends in the background…whoops.

Now Jenn is trying to tell her mom to keep swinging the book, Nolin is still eating shells (that we have yet to take out of his mouth), and yep I haven’t moved…it’s my personal Blue Steel.