Every December, it's the same thing. The struggle to come up with a photo that is worthy of being sent out as the annual Smith fam. Christmas card begins.
I take A LOT of pictures of the Smithlings throughout the year, but we rarely ever have a picture with all five of us. Why must it be so difficult to get our family together for a family portrait? And why do we never arrange to have our pictures taken professionally? (Perhaps this is a New Year's resolution.)
I truly enjoy receiving Christmas cards in the mail from friends and family, but I must admit there is oftentimes a teeny, tiny twinge of envy. I clearly have too many really creative friends and relatives. And how do the families with wee little babes find the time/energy to make it to a portrait sitting, then manage to arrive with clean clothes and smiles on their faces? Impressive! I have one teen and two young adults and can't make it happen. It takes planning, effort, and patience. Obviously, I am lacking in one or more of those areas.
Here are some of the options we considered for our seasonal greetings:
Silly? Absolutely!
I think these all represent our family accurately, but I just wasn't ready to use any of these images on a card.
We settled on this:
I searched through months and months of pictures hoping to find one (just one!) picture that all five of us were in. This was one of the handful of pictures that I found that captured all five of us at once. This shot was taken in September as we celebrated a certain someone's 21st birthday. We had gone out to eat at a favorite Tex-Mex restaurant. All five of us are smiling, looking at the camera, and all eyes are open. Yay! Thanks to some editing skills, we were able to get rid of the dinner plates, drinking glasses and straws that were visible at the bottom of the image. It all worked out.
We seem to have no trouble rallying the troops to go out to eat dinner, so perhaps we need to plan a family dinner outing, then sneak in a photo shoot for dessert. I suppose that'll work, provided nobody splatters their clothing with food.
Next Christmas, it'll be different.
Probably not...
