A Woman's Work – Brooke Basically Blogging

Am I the only one that panics when it comes to the annual holiday photo card?  Growing up I loved when my parents shared the Christmas cards with us.  My mom would display them on the mantle and all around the house.

Imagine my excitement when I was able to send out my own set of Christmas cards.  The cards had to go out the first week of December. Which meant I spent November acting like the evil step mother trying to get the perfect picture.  It was easy when the kids were little. I just propped them up in front of a Christmas scene and snapped away.

 

My ex-husband was even on a few of our cards.  On our first holiday card with Harrison he was wearing sweatpants because we were sitting down.  I should have known I was headed for divorce court then.  But a sista had to keep hope alive.  You will notice he smiled for one photo.  I was determined to come up with clever and funny ideas for our holiday card. I am by no means a photographer. But I had props, ideas, and cranky kids.

The card had to be perfect.  Everyone was supposed to look happy and smiling directly into the camera.  Getting a child with autism to take a picture can be a task.  I probably traumatized Sydney from our family photo shoots.  But I was determined each year to get a card that captured the spirit of our family. I had the “rockin theme”.   The year we spelled out  JOY took a month.  I had to find the props, perfect weather and threaten them to smile.

Why did the Christmas card have to be perfect?  Why couldn’t I have just used pictures from the entire year?  Deep down inside our world was rocky. My failing marriage, teaching and autism therapy wore me out.  So just once I wanted something to go right for our family and I wanted it to be the Christmas card.  I would spend hours debating over the fonts, the number of photos and which cardstock I would select.

 

Not this year. Our card has all Disney pictures and I got them from Walgreens on glossy paper!  This weekend I will address all of the envelopes because I have a lot of free time and get them in the mail by Monday. I was thinking of just sending a group text with the picture and save on postage?  Or just post it on social media?😉

Here’s a sneak peek at the card just in case it doesn’t arrive until January.

Merry Christmas

~Brooke