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Dec
7
Say, does anyone remember how successful our attempts at a holiday card photo were last year? Let me tell you, we did equally well this time around.
Hey, this isn’t so bad, right? Dylan’s okay, I’m okay, JB’s okay, and—oh. Nevermind.
Pathetic, probably-abused Dog; Monster Hands, Suspicious Toddler. Yeah, pass.
Hey, you know that carrying-you-for-nine-months-followed-by-major-surgery-thing? YOU’RE FUCKING WELCOME.
Unattractive angle, child pounding my head, other child apparently making howler monkey noise. Jesus. PASS.
I . . . uh. Why is—why? WHY?
Okay. Okay okay okay, everyone’s sick of trying to do this, this looks like the closest thing we’ve got to a—WHAT THE HELL, RILEY.
Next time, I’m hiring a photographer. Not to take pictures of us, but to call every relative I know and explain in technical terms how taking family portraits is best left to the professionals and THAT’S why we don’t have a goddamned holiday card this year.
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I love all of these photos. I know I would totally enjoy receiving photos like these from my family and friends :)
One word: Photoshop.
It’s easiest if you can get everyone on one side to look good in one photo, and everyone on the other side to look good in another photo.
Actually, all of these together on one card would be quite cute. “Christmas photo outtakes.”
try getting eleven people (2 are babies) to look at the camera for a picture! We decided to do a family pic of the kids and grandkids for my parents. Finally decided on the one where all the adults are smiling at the camera and the babies are looking else where. We’ll just include a cute one of them in another frame =)
Love them all! Your boys make everything look like fun. :)
Also, the way JB is looking at you in the one where Dylan is pounding on your head… SWEET. Eons better than the average carefully-posed couple picture.
Oh, that last one made me pee in my pants. SO GREAT.
Haahahaa Riley has learned to be the PhotoBomber.
Oh god, I’m going through this right now.
I dread this task. Every year. I have four kids and I have resigned myself to the “collage of individual faces” because it is just too hard to get everyone looking and smiliing.
But I think you last one looks great!
Hell, my favorite family picture this year is one snapped during an attempted lovely-posed-real-photographer session.
Milbarge is attempting to liquefy her own spine in order to ooze out of frame (bonus: she’s crying bitter tears of rage at her failure to do so) Fitz-Hume is partially upside down while I frantically try to pull her super-twee-but-in-retrospect-perhaps-a-skosh-too-small pants back up, ABC is laughing her ass off, and Sam is trying pretty hard to deny that he knows the rest of us, because we are all weirdos.
Hysterical…..laughed out loud again!
Actually the fourth one is perfect. It says it all in the way JB looks at you. Go for it.
HA! I Love your comments, that made my morning.
OMG, You have bangs.
I had to photoshop the head of my 2 year old from one photo to another. Anyway, at least you tried. I hate it when people only put photos of thier kids on the cards. I want to see the grown-ups also!
I’ve been waiting for this post. It makes me laugh every year. I love the last photo. You look beautiful.
I just used some photos from the end of the year at various places we visited. I used six total. Two of them were the two kids together, two were an individual shot of each kid, and two of the photos included myself and my husband with one or both of the kids. It made it easier and love the way it turned out!
My trick is to take the four best individual photographs of our family taken in the past year, and use *that* as our holiday card. I just design a card that has four spaces for photos. Works for us -and is virtually stress free.
Oh my God. I laughed out loud. You are hilarious!
Every morning (for the past 4 days) I get up and put my 7 week old in a black velvet party dress and try to bribe my 3 year old, whom I have to pin down to wrangle into his Christmas outfit, to hold her lovingly beneath the Christmas tree. Yesterday it ended with my him deliberately removing and PEEING on his sweater whilst I cleaned the spit-up off the party dress, again. Yes, I am a glutton for punishment.
Those are fantastic! In ours last year, the toddlers thought it would be funny to turn at the last minute & point their rear ends at the camera. Good times.
That last one is good! Of course, every year, we do a Christmas cards with *just* my boys and every year I end up giving up and sending a card featuring a picture of the boys ‘hugging’ (see also: wrestling).
Just gotta say…I LOVE the bangs!
The hands-in-pockets photo is hilarious! If you crop it just to include Riley and JB, you’ve got a frameworthy one!
Hey, L – in Utah for a family thing and catching up on you. As always, you make me bray like a donkey (your words, but I steal them — frequently!). You all look great. I mean, srsly. MERRY CHRISTMAS! There, I said it. (P.S. Love the bangs, too — makes you look like you are 18.)
Your commentary was HILARIOUS! I laughed so hard I had tears! These are the moments we should all be living for…not the fake smiled pictures that we’re all striving for.
We went through the same thing last weekend. Not an easy feat with 2 boys, but try FOUR kids – ages 3 months, 2.5 years, 6.5 years, and 12.5 years. Yeah, fucking hilarious if I let myself get over the frustration of yet another Christmas card that doesn’t live up to perfection.
The actual one? Gorgeous, I love you guys!
We did our holiday card photo shoot last weekend (a 2-year-old and 5-mo-old twins), and upon review of the 50-odd photos, I TOTALLY REMEMBERED YOUR POST from last year. Right there with you, sister!
These are fantastic, Linda. Did you use a timer, or have a friend/family member take them? We had professional photos taken this fall with all of us (2 adults and kids ages 13, 11, 8, 6 & 22 months). Even the pro had to photoshop. The toddler would NOT cooperate!
You forgot “JB standing in fig-leaf pose” on photo attempt #4.
The pictures & commentary are hilarious! Thanks for the morning laugh. We are going through something similar… can’t get a single “good” family photo. I can Photoshop the crap out of things and I still can’t get anything better than a pumpkin patch picture which isn’t exactly appropriate for a Christmas card, is it? I hate when people send Christmas cards with just their kids on it but I may have to resort to that because they just had school photos and they turned out really well.
As usual… you never disappoint.
Child pounding head is AWESOME. Is it me or is JB’s grin screaming told ya this was a bad idea? Classic!
Oh I needed that…I have two monkeys – er boys – your age and I have a million of the same pictures. Hands in pants, mouth open, beating me up…and why does daddy always look good in all pictures? No fair. Thanks for the tears of laughter!
So freaking funny. I think the Monster Hands one is my favorite, especially with Dog adding a tragic element to it: “Oh, won’t someone please just pat my head? Even just a LITTLE??”
Ours are worse. Plus we did ‘em without the dog (the only chance we had was Thanksgiving, not at home).
Love the bangs…
We forewent the entire deal this year and just sent a semi-recent pic of the kid.
LOL. I just LOVE the hands in pockets picture! Hilarious. Otherwise, I feel your pain. This is why I never bother attempting family Christmas cards…they never work *lol*
I swear — those boys were put on this earth to make me laugh. And you must have read Swistle today — it must be something in the air. . . . .
There is perfection in imperfection. Love all the photos!
dude, love this one: Unattractive angle, child pounding my head, other child apparently making howler monkey noise. Jesus. PASS.
Funny! And hey, What do I say to my stylist to get your hair?
Er, hair CUT, not your actual hair…
I took 120 frames trying to get our four children to just look normal – not perfect – just normal. And I didn’t get a single one so I made a short movie of all the crappy out takes. If you watch, I promise you’ll think your shots are AWESOME.
http://www.vimeo.com/17268743
Aw, Linda….every one of them if fantastic. Really! You all look normal and happy and like people I’d enjoy knowing.
FRAME that one of you and Riley….it’s an absolute keeper and almost made me cry.
:is: fantastic….geesh
You guys look like the fun lovin’ family you are. I appreciate the honesty of these photos. I say celebrate the goofy! You have had an intense year and you are hanging in there. Let it shine.
I was giggling the whole way through but Riley’s face in that last one pushed me over the edge into that weird thing where you’re not making noise and just sort of gasping.
Awesome Christmas card pics! I would love getting cards like this from my friends/family rather than the overly posed ones I seem to get.
Hey Linda, is there any reason why you’ve taken away your Archives? I miss reading your old posts about your pregnancies and working out after them.
Glad I wasn’t the only one who noticed, JB’s face in photo #4…man, that’s what sappy movies are made out of. *swoon*
Lord, I have to get my camera shy husband and kids lined up this week so we have something to send out. Thank you for sharing the hilarious pain. My unsolicited hairstylee opinion: You are beautiful but I’m not liking the heavy bangs.
I have to say, I really do like #4 and #6-hey, it’s life with two little boys and one older one who looks like he likes you ALOT. It’s real and way better than the overly posed and nowhere close to reality “perfect” ones that you usually get.
At least you have pictures-I’ll probably just use one of the cat climbing the Christmas tree…
These pictures made my day. I think you should just go with them – it will amuse all of your family and friends! :)
dont you love when people make a comment about something obvious and then they dont follow up with a compliment…
I never do pictures with all of us, I just – it would never, ever work. I can’t even do pictures of my three kids. I just pick my favorite pictures of them from the year and plug them into a picture and bam! Christmas card. :)
I read #4 as “unattractive angel” – I looked all over that damn picture for a fucking angel. Oh. Angle.
At least your husband didn’t mess with the settings on your camera and NOT notice that he’d left the white balance on incandescent light when we were outside. Blue Christmas anyone? Luckily Photoshop pretty much corrected it, but it took so much longer than just taking a good picture to begin with.
I really should not have read this beside my sleeping child! The last one nearly undid all my hard work!
I vote for “ALL + Captions”– hilarious and so much more fun than a perfectly posed portrait!
How about trying a shot with you and JB dangling the boys by their ankles? Then at least if they have weird expressions the relatives can blame it on the blood pooling in their brains.
That last picture of Riley made me laugh. And then I read your caption – WHAT THE HELL, RILEY – and I actually snorted!!!!!!!!
The one where Dylan is bonking you on the head is hilarious! It would go great with an anti-holiday letter :) (Wait, was that LAST YEAR? Dude, where does the time go?)
I may be over-analyzing, but did you make JB change into a neutral shirt? Now that’s funny! Totally the kind of thing I can relate to.
The best part about Christmas pictures is the outtakes. Loved your comments, too. Thank you!
We just did this with a 10 year old, a 6 year old, a 5 year old and a 6 month old and every single one of the photobombed at least one pose. At least we had a good laugh at the outtakes. Your pictures are great, I especially loved the hands in pockets one!
I’m laughing in our holiday picture this year. But I laugh a lot, so I figure that’s what I look like to most people. (My husband thinks I look like I’m eating my daughter, who’s sitting on my lap, but I’m pretty sure I look like I’m laughing. At least, that’s what I was doing, and not eating my daughter.) My husband looks pretty geeky, but he’s a geek, so I guess it’s ok. But our two year-old twins look gorgeous. My daughter has a sort-of smile, not her normal picture posey smile, which makes her look like the evil twin. And my son, well, he’s not smiling, but he has a sweet little look on his face, and no red-eye for a change. So we went with that one. And if years from now people remember the year we sent them a picture of me eating my daughter… well, aren’t the holidays about making memories?
Don’t worry…hiring a professional doesn’t make it better. Just makes it worse. One kid decides to ham it up (and insists on bringing random stuffed animal he never plays with into every picture, thrusting it in front of his face most of the time) while the other kid bursts into tears because she doesn’t want to smile YET, she wants to smile IN A MINUTE. Also, then the professional photographer gets to hear all of my beggingswearingbribingparenting. Yeah, stick with doing it yourself.
I love you…your blog…your writing. But, I do have a teensy tiny confession (as if you give a shit). I don’t *love* the bangs. I clicked on the 2009 picture, and I think your hairstyle last year was so cute! A bit younger looking as well. Ack. I know you don’t want to hear that, but I’ve been reading your blog since oh….about 4 years, and I feel we can go there. lol
I *love* your hair. And I’ve been reading you since before you went to Thailand. ;)
The photo you used for your card was awesome and your letter was epic.
The Mean Girls need to shut the hell up. And possibly, look in the mirror. OF THEIR SOULS.
Seriously – how petty can people be?
You (and your hair) are beautiful, as is your family. The haters need to get a life.
xoxo
Your pictures are not that bad, really. Your kids look cute!
My all time favorite pics of my kids was when they were little was when we made the dreaded pilgramage to The Mall Santa. My daughter was smiling and posing beautifully (because she was a huge ham)and her little brother was screaming his head off. It never failed. At the time, I was annoyed because he ruined the pictures, but now, some 15 years later, I LOVE them!
Also see: All I Want For Christmas is a Normal Christmas Picture, by The Meanest Mom. Her pictures of her kids are pure comedy gold. My daughter and I still laugh over them!
I…I kind of love the first one.
First time commenting. Came here via Pocklock.
Had to say that this? Made me laugh. HARD.
Totally needed that right now.
Okay, I have been a lurker for a couple of years (yeah, I know) – but I had to post tonight. I just had abdominal surgery and your attempts at a holiday photo are cracking my ass up. OUCH! If I bust a stitch, I am blaming you.
Thanks for the laughs!