Monday, December 11, 2006

Anatomy of a holiday card








So, I had this idea, matching dresses (at a deep discount, because I just ordinarily wouldn’t go for purple tie-dye), and I’d get them into the kid pic studio, the kind that makes appointments, and they would have hair cuts and clean tights with no holes in the knees and they would be stunning and it would reflect so well on my organizational skills and, well, that flopped. The damn dresses hang like sacks, they didn’t shrink in the vast amounts of yardage necessary to make it look like the girls weren’t wearing tie-dyed cement bags, and no hair cuts because Miss Shanna (who could cut “strong” Asian hair and for whose skills I was willing to drive to her BFE hair salon (manyth East and manyth South, when you grow up in Davis County, anyth South past 33rd is the suburbs of BFE and this salon was in Sandy, two exits past BFE in my universe), she moved back to Wyoming and even though it’s tempting, I won’t take them 7 hours one way for a good hair cut. Conversely, I won't take them 10 minutes away for a bad hair cut either, so, no hair cuts, no fabulous matching dresses, no studio portrait.



















So, in a rush to get the cards out because I didn’t generally announce our move to this bigger but not better house 1.5 years ago and I was worried that too many cards that people planned to send us would go to the old house where the forwarding order expired long ago, and if I got our cards in the mail pronto, maybe the wasted postage could be avoided, I slammed some Santa hats on their heads, pushed them up against the fire place and snapped away, growing progressively more threatening as shot after shot came out with crazy eyes.
The last shot that was finally acceptable was taken just before they all started to cry because I was getting so frustrated with them and hissing at them to keep your eyes OPEN, NO ONE BLINKS, NO ONE!!!
Ah, perfection, kind of, almost, good enough, get those bad boys in the mail.

And yes, I HAVE always admired the works of William Faulkner, and I think that the use of periods is greatly over-rated, slows down the mind's eye, takes away from the conversational sounds of reading a great rush of words, dontcha think?

4 comments:

Pixel Fairy Princess said...

Love the picture - as I have no patents for the studio thing - although all the GP are really putting pressure on me for a family portrait (which after almost 10 years wth Ian has still not occured - except for at places like Disney). Anyway, I think the four of them look awesome together in their Santa hats - oh and when the clothes don't match I turn on the black and white feature! I only say that because Ian and LiLi have NOTHING that matches and so we take a lot of BW images :-)
Merry Christmas!
Debbie

Anonymous said...

>>>>>>...I slammed some Santa hats on their heads, pushed them up against the fire place and snapped away, growing progressively more threatening as shot after shot came out with crazy eyes. The last shot that was finally acceptable was taken just before they all started to cry because I was getting so frustrated with them and hissing at them to keep your eyes OPEN, NO ONE BLINKS, NO ONE!!!>>>>>

***********************************

OK--this one has me LLOL (literally laughing out loud) at 12:35 AM. My goodness, you are one fiercely funny mom. Or it could just be late...(snicker)

Random comments: love the sweaters and all they represent; love that Nora looks so proud receving her pkg; love the purple dresses (but in the interest of full disclosure, I thought they were matching nightgowns--ouch!); love the Santa hats and the story that goes with.

Night, ComedyMom.

Teri
(from Iowa)

Lisa and Tate said...

Who needs matching dresses, newly trimmed haircuts and an appointment photo shoot. I love the Santa hats and the girls as they are... cute as Santa's little helpers!!!!

Anonymous said...

My mom was a single mom of 3 kids, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and NO one was a single mom (unless her husband had been killed and she was a poor widow...) I cannot tell you how much I admire *anyone* who can raise 4 girls, have a career AND take holiday card photos! Lord above, we're talking miracles here. And not just that these are the most beautiful, wonderful, fabulous girls in the world, but that their mom keeps them that way and no one's dead! Tis indeed a Christmas miracle.

Merry, merry -
Jean (Sarah and Eleanor and Gen's gamma)