The Christmas Card

So I love stationary. I really don't know why - maybe its the design aspect of it that I love. Or the paper feel in my hands. Or the colors of Sharpie pens and smell of highlighters. I don't know. All I know is that I could spend a lot of money at OfficeMax.

This means that I love receiving Christmas cards - and guess what? Christmas is a month away! I'll swag a door frame with holiday cheer from my family and friends! Some years I create a custom family Christmas card and some years I don't. There have been years of sickness or deep grief that I didn't even feel like celebrating Christmas, much less send out blissful wishes of a wonderful season and new year. But with the years that I do feel the festivity, I strong-arm my family into posing position for an awkward family portrait. Its not my favorite genre of photography, and it certainly isn't real for us. Maybe what we need to do is hire a photographer to take candid shots of us together. But the problem is, I have candid shots of us - beautiful, honest images of my loved ones sweet faces. But they don't like them because they don't see themselves the way everybody else sees them. And so I can't add these awesome pictures to the photo card. And I'm not in them anyway. Now Gracie (my black golden-doodle dog) and Tiny (my blood thirsty ninja cat), give me less-than-enthusiastic energy when I approach them with my camera. They suddenly look sullen or depressed. Or in the case of Tiny, she looks like she will bite my ankles off so that I'm walking around on stumps. What am I to do???

Do you feel my pain? What is your experience like? Does your family like having their pictures taken (wait, don't answer that)? Do you have a funny theme? I think I'm going to try for a more candid approach this year while hunting for our Christmas tree.

Wish me luck!! (or better yet, pray for Divine help)