Christmas Card Outtakes – The Later Years

Continuing on from yesterday…

Christmas 2007 –Mommy’s Having a Breakdown

Unfortunately, Christmas 2007 was not the best Christmas ever, as I was hurling headlong into my fight with anxiety and depression. Needless to say, I didn’t really have it in me to do any awesome Christmas pictures. All I have is these:

The top one looks like a little four year old protecting his two year old sister from the constant sobbing of their mother. It breaks my heart.

In the bottom one, their expressions remind me a little of American Gothic:

Christmas 2008 –Christmas or Pentecost?

Christmas 2008 was an interesting year for Christmas Pictures. I formulated this idea that we’d pose in front of the fireplace all wearing matching white shirts. I thought it would look cozy. Jason built a fire. I wrangled the kids into their button-down shirts. We had all been through the ringer that year and by golly, we came out stronger and it was going to show!

Pretty good, huh? Some of the smiles looked forced, some are non-existent, but it is good enough.

But I took one more shot.

OH MY! We are all smiling! Most of the smiles are genuine. There is unity! Closeness! Love! It’s a keeper!

We printed off a bazillion and sent them across the world. We even blew the picture up to give to both sets of parents. Who wouldn’t want to display this beauty?

But somewhere along the way, someone made a comment that it looked like Jason’s head was on fire. It was probably my brother. I haven’t been able to enjoy this picture as much ever since that was pointed out.

Christmas 2009 – The Year Mommy Found Picnik.com and Lost her Sense of Good Taste

It all started so innocently. The kids were playing in front of the Christmas tree and I started to take some pictures of them. Then I thought I would do some editing through this new website I had been told about called Picnik. Then I spent too much time playing with the new website and here are the results.

I call this one,  “Choir Boy and Princess Artificial Flowers Get Stuck in a Mall Santa Picture without Santa.”

Oh, there are more where that came from:

Fa-La-La-La-La…La, La, Laaa, Laaa!

She is a vision in pink and plastic!

Then, as if that wasn’t cheesy enough, one snowy, 20 below zero day in Cleveland, Ohio, I had what I thought was a COMPLETELY BRILLIANT idea. I would drive down the street to a church that had set up a plywood cutout nativity scene.

I would bring two white sheets. Wait for it…wait for it…

and I would have the kids wrap themselves up in the sheets and pose in the midst of the plywood and reverently look toward Baby Jesus! It was gonna be my best Christmas Card idea EVER.

So we trespassed onto the church property. The weather was HORRIBLE. It was a wind chill advisory day, I am pretty sure.

But when Mommy gets an idea, the idea sometimes forces out common sense.

Here’s poor Anthony, freezing his arse off with the wise men.

I can promise you that the kids tried to be reverent here, but their faces were so frozen (with both cold and anger). I remember yelling and yelling at them, “Pull the sheets around your  coats!! I see the coats!” Maybe I thought I was actually going to fool someone into believing that we weren’t in the front yard of a church we don’t belong to, but we were indeed in Bethlehem. From the way Abby’s smiling at me, she looks about ready to wrap me up and drag me off to a place where it’s warm and moms don’t subject their kids to frostbite for Christmas pictures.

Major fail.

I did my best, in the year of Picnik.com, to salvage the dream. By golly, my kids were going to be honoring the Christ child in our 2009 Christmas Card. So I worked for hours…and here is the final result:

Coming up tomorrow Christmas 2010 and the reveal of the Piteo Family Christmas Photo 2011!

Also thanks so much for the submissions of your own Christmas Card fails!  It makes me laugh and I feel like I am in good company! Please keep them coming! Send them to jill@piteo.net and I will share them on Friday!