So we stopped just short of actually killing Santa on this year’s card. Happy Holidays!

(To be visited by the Cards of Christmas Past, click here and here).

front

back

front

back

The front of the card this year was all taken in one shot - there was no Photoshopping necessary other than for the border and the text. In years past, I’ve had to take the best elements from several pics and combine them all into one shot. This time, after the turkeys were wrapped up and trundled off into the front yard, all that Jill had to do was stand behind me and yell over my shoulder, “Hey boys, you know what we’re having for dinner tonight? Spaghetti and POOPballs!”. I found out later that she’d been saving that one.

Liam and Nate looked at one another for a beat, then burst out laughing, and Sam joined in simply because the other boys were laughing, and they were holding his mittens. So, poop joke = mirth, togetherness, and what can easily be mistaken for brotherly love.

*sound of camera clicking*

The back was done in Photoshop with the help of my Intuos4 PC Tablet. Initially, the cards came back from the printer and the yellow snow looked lime green. So we had to order another set pronto. Unfortunately, after a week of waiting for the mistake to be corrected, those cards also arrived with lime-green whiz. In the end, we decided to send them out anyway. It was either that, or we were going to have to hang onto 500 holiday postcards until St. Paddy’s Day.

As usual, my part in all this was mostly that of a Photoshop Puppet and Printer Liaison.

It was all Jill’s idea.

Anyone listening? Merry Christmas.

Decked out in their shirts from the Christmas card, the boys decorated their cookies for Santa as Sam - he of furrowed brow and kung-fu hands - rocked gently in his swing behind them. Closer inspection of the picture below may reveal that there is in fact cookie dough and a tray beneath the piles of candy sprinkles in front of Nate. 

Before we put it into the oven, we tipped his tray and almost filled a cereal bowl with sprinkle overflow. We hid this activity from Liam, as it could have easily resulted in all focus shifting from Santa’s cookies to that bowl of homeless sprinkles and their need to be lorded and obsessed over.

The boys left their cookies for Santa, and for reasons known only to him, Liam immediately demanded a second, empty plate for his own use. For reasons known to anyone but Liam, I denied this request based on my desire to get Santa (who was by then drumming his fingers impatiently on the DirecTV dish) going on toy assembly, and out of a sense of fatherly Nate-preservation (in the event that he strayed too closely to Liam’s proposed plate). 

This did not go over well, and Liam staged his protest off camera, near the tree. Nate dropped to the floor, scooted his legs under the cookie stool, and pointed happily at COOKEESTH! 

Sam, who may have not even realized that he was no longer in the kitchen, delivered one of his very first smiles. To a fake, half-decorated tree.

On Christmas morning, the boys discovered their stockings. Amidst all the chocolate and candy, Liam found a toothbrush-holder with a suction cup on the back. Our gift to him? Irony.

Nate wrangled their new Radio Flyer, and I took a moment to appreciate it all.

One day, Jill and I will be gone, and all that will remain of this unfolding morning will be an antique scooter and the distant memories of early childhood… dimly and warmly recalled by three old men: One hunkered over an empty plate, one pointing happily at cookies, and one smiling toothlessly at a tree.