Holiday Card Reflections

As I look at the end result, I wonder why I feel the need to drag my kids out into a dismal backyard scene of blowing snow and dilapidated fences to photograph them and then send it to our friends.

When they were really young, I couldn’t even think of getting organized enough to create a card.  I used to look at the ones sent to us: three smiling children in a row under a tree, hugging, laughing, frolicking, and wonder how they did it with such composure.  To create a holiday scene like theirs, I would have had to have hired a choreographer, stage manager and probably hair and make-up crew.

I became enticed by the images arriving in our mailbox.  How are these families so glowing and polished?  What do they feed their kids? We look like we’ve been camping for weeks.  When I finally convinced my kids to get their photos done professionally by a kind mom who volunteered for a local preschool (Thank you Denise Roberge and Little Learners) we became enchanted.  My daughter got in touch with her inner glamour girl, and my son just laughed.  That was the year I decided that we had what it takes to pull off a holiday card.

I obsessed for days over the color and design details.  My kids looked like they skipped right out of a Dickens novel and landed in a one-horse open sleigh.  We even added lightly falling snow.  It was a work of art.  And, it was the beginning of my love affair with the once-dreaded holiday card.  I went spastic, ordering about hundred and fifty of them.  I think we only had fourteen friends and twelve relatives.

So we sent them to unsuspecting businesses around town.  (Why would Rick from Chung King want our card? Or his comrades at Emerald Rose?)  

Over the years, I’ve toned down the preparation and staging. I like to capture my kids outside, organically and casually if possible.  (This year was neither)  Procrastinating made things feel rushed and forced.  And everyone had opinions about the holiday card.

After fretting needlessly that my son appeared forlorn, and my daughter’s hair didn’t look the way it usually does, I stood back and just took the snapshots…and then slowly lost control as the props in my holiday tableau came to life.  They didn’t want to wear a sweater, change a hairstyle, or even pose for some forced holiday scene.   They did, however, want to antagonize one another and compete for the dog’s affections with hidden meat-flavored bribes.   

The finished product–a compromise, not a masterpiece- reflects, not stellar choreography or gentle snowflakes,  but the essence of my children: an earnest young boy attempting to hide his dimples by not completely smiling, and his teenaged sister flashing a grin as she issues orders from her post beside the tree. 

And this is the year I decided that we may no longer have what it takes to pull off the holiday card.

Megan Davis Collins wishes you Happy New Year! megdavcol@gmail.com