Health & Fitness
Holidaycardapalooza 2011
One Mom embarks on the stress-riddled, time-honored tradition of the pursuit of the perfect holiday photo card.
It's my own fault, really. The pressure, completely self-induced. But, few things strike more anxiety in my festive holiday season than the holiday card photo shoot and subsequent compilation of an original, fabulous, memorable photo holiday card.
Every year around Halloween, I find myself thinking, "I HAVE to start thinking about this year's holiday card!" I begin brainstorming ideas, poring through the throngs of photos saved on my laptop for just the right poses and smiles, even tooling around Photoshop with the lofty goal of bucking any pre-made card templates and designing my own that family and friends will reminisce about for years to come. "Remember the beach scene pose of 2004? GENIUS," they'll say.
Then, life and reality and my obvious lack of graphic design skills set in and it becomes painfully obvious...I'm in serious trouble.
Before kids, I'd never even entertain the notion of sending a photo holiday card of just my husband and me. I mean, really. Just the sheer pressure of finding one pose that eliminates just one of my, ahem, several chins was enough to sour me to any idea that included my mug on a holiday card.
But, the second the kids arrived (twins!), the infant care instructions from the hospital read as follows: "Change diapers as needed, burp after feedings, send yourself into self-induced panic attack when choosing your photo holiday card. Congratulations on your new bundle!"
In past years, we'd haul both kids to Ye Olde Department Store photo studio for portraits in late November. Never short of a major ordeal, the event always caused more stress than the photos it produced. After the third year of dropping the equivalent to a small country's GDP on a package of pictures, we opted for the DIY option.
Although unsure where it came from, I found a bit of holiday card Zen this year. Perhaps as a multi-year veteran of the quest for holiday card perfection, I lowered my standards...er...expectations. I have an idea, albeit a bit cheesy, heavy on a pun and will likely be lost on anyone who lives outside of New London.
I scheduled our photo shoot for this afternoon, an unseasonably mild New England day, and will take the pics myself with my new-to-me fancy-ish camera. Staying positive stands as my only goal this year. Maybe one picture will show BOTH kids looking at the camera at the SAME time! A Mom can hope for a holiday miracle, right?
