I'm re-running this post (originally published 12-27-07) for several reasons: I still haven't recovered from Christmas enough to write a coherent post, we still have a bit of holiday traveling to do, and when we get back, we have to deal with the sudden (but not all that unexpected) death of a family member on Dave's side. So – busy, but not too busy to phone in one of my all-time, absolute favourite Christmas posts, ever. Enjoy.

 

PAST CHRISTMASES REVISITED: 2005

 

Because I’m still feeling run down by the way Christmas exploded on the scene and the whole ‘thirteen people at my house for Christmas Day dinner’ thing that came immediately thereafter, I’m going to journey back in time and tell the story of the day we took the kids for their first ever Christmas portrait together.

 

Being that it was our first Christmas with two kids, I wanted to send out photo cards with them on it. I booked an appointment at the photo studio with visions of how my holiday cards would turn out: my beautiful newborn son nestled in his two-year-old sister’s lap against a festive Christmas backdrop, Julia’s wavy brown hair done up with a bow, a smile on her face and a twinkle in her eye. I went out and bought the kids outfits just for the occasion – an adorable red corduroy jumper with a matching flowered blouse for Julia and a cute pair of beige cords and a striped shirt for Oliver.

 

On the day of our appointment I gave the kids baths and got them all dolled up, put a snack together for Julia and grabbed a few books in case we had to wait. I made sure we had extra soothers and diapers for Oliver and nursed him one last time before we got our coats on and headed out the door.

 

The scene at the portrait studio was the kind of typical madness that ensues at portrait studios around Christmastime: the waiting area was teeming with kids stuffed in their Sunday best who were totally jacked up and systematically destroying the place, their haggard-looking parents making futile attempts to entertain their little stinkers darling children and keep them relatively still (and clean) at the same time.

 

Dave and I glanced at each other, braced ourselves and made our way to the receptionist, where we announced our arrival and found chairs that weren’t smeared with snot to sit on. With Oliver asleep in his carrier and Julia reading the books I’d brought, the wait wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been.

 

A good half hour later our names were called and we immediately began hemming and hawing over which Christmas backdrop we wanted to use. We went with something simple yet festive, one that wouldn’t draw attention away from our perfect, beautiful children and the holiday message we were trying to send: Look at our perfect, beautiful children! Oh yeah, and Merry Christmas too.

 

The photographer, who looked like she’d just come back from smokin’ a big fat doober out back, set up a small table for the kids to sit on and draped a white fuzzy blanket over it to act as snow. She showed me where she wanted Julia to sit and explained that once Julia sat down, she’d put a wedge under the ‘snow’ for Oliver to sit up against. But when it came time for Julia to sit up on the table all hell broke loose. The table was wobbly – it was secure, but it wobbled a bit when Julia first sat on it and that was enough to send her into a meltdown of epic proportions. Despite several hushed pep talks, candy bribes and failed attempts at simply plopping her down on the table she flat-out refused to go near it. By this time we’d been there for like, forty-five minutes, Dave and I were sporting pit stains, Oliver and the photographer were getting fussy and we hadn’t taken a single picture.

 

At long last, the manager, looking much less pie-eyed than our photographer, stepped in and took action, setting up a box for Julia to stand on behind the table where Oliver would sit – a perfect solution that perhaps our photographer could have come up with had she not been quite so baked. But while Julia had no problem with standing on the box, she couldn’t pull herself together for love nor money. She was in the thick of her meltdown and nothing – not even the little plastic teapot the manager tried to distract her with – was going to calm her down. By then Oliver was also screaming, Julia was close to hyperventilation and my boobs were full-on leaking, but there was no way in hell that Dave and I were going to walk out of that studio without Christmas cards – no matter what they looked like. So we told the manager to take the picture.

 

Two weeks later I went back to the studio to pick up my holiday cards. I gave the lady at the counter my last name and she pulled a box of portrait envelopes out, sifting through them until she found ours. Before she handed me my envelope she pulled a card out to look at it and when she did a look of horror crossed her face.

 

“Oh, no,” she gasped, clasping her hand over her mouth. She looked up at me and then back down at the card. “Oh, no. We must’ve ordered the wrong print.”

 

 “I don’t think you did,” I said, grinning.

 

She looked like she was going to burst into tears. “Yes, we did. Oh, dear. I’m so sorry.”

 

I was still grinning. “Trust me, you didn’t. Can I see it?”

 

She gave me this half scared, half apologetic look before turning the card around slowly so I could see it. And when I did, I laughed so hard I nearly wet myself.

 

“It’s PERFECT,” I said. “If this doesn’t scream Merry Christmas, I don’t know what does.”

 

 

I ordered sixty of these cards with the slogan "Holiday wishes from our house to yours!" cheerily splashed beside the picture. Underneath that I wrote, "Happy Holidays from our little angels" and I sent them all out, save for one that I framed and put in the living room…because precious moments like this one need to be displayed for all to see. Right?

 

 

In: aw, shit!, life with julia, life with oliver, parenting | tags: warm holiday memories. | #