a peek inside the fishbowl

Mark joked that the activity for our first day of advent should be:

Hooray! We’re going to get our H1N1 vaccine!

Ha. No. I wouldn’t have put it in the advent (this is what we really did) but we still had to get our shots. And we did, at Tom Brown. They were efficient and polite and even pleasant. The girls were awesome. I was really impressed. Sarah volunteered to go first, even though she was clearly frightened and somewhat freaked out by the whole deal. She said she hates the thought of a piece of metal sticking out of her skin. (I concur!) We told her no one likes to get a needle but sometimes we need to do things we don’t like to do. That’s life, right?

Afterwards we bought some ice cream. I lit the candles in our faux fireplace (shown rather fuzzily here) and we ate our treat on the floor. Something occurred to me. We’re a team. The girls are older now and our family dynamic has changed. We’re no longer two adults caring/micromanaging/directing the lives for two helpless little ones; we’re a family of four people who have opinions and attitudes and feelings and have a SAY in what kind of ice cream we should buy. It’s a democracy! Or maybe it’s more like a kindly dictatorship? Regardless of how we try to define it, it’s different now. And I like it.

Anyway, this was not the point of my post.

Day two of our family advent was about charity. I like to do the charity stuff near the top of the calendar, not just to get it out of the way, but to make a point. ‘Tis the season of giving after all, right?

I felt like crap all day yesterday (a result of the vaccine no doubt) and it hit me like a ton of bricks after school. Raging headache, fatigue, sore arm; I wasn’t capable of doing anything so I wandered in and out of the room while Mark and the girls checked out the World Vision catalogue together. Emma chose to buy clothing for 25 children and Sarah chose to give the gift of a piglet.

It was a good thing to do. Flipping through the website always brings up a lot of interesting questions; Why are girls at risk of not getting an education? Why do people need mosquito nets? What could someone do with two hens and a rooster?

Day three (today) is about writing letters to Santa. I’ve already mentioned that the eldest doesn’t believe anymore, but she’s willing to keep the tradition alive for her sister. We’re going to hunker down after school and write out our lists, illustrate the letters, and pop them in the mail. ETA: Here’s Sarah, with a banana/toffee milkshake while she works on her draft.

I’ve been working on mine already. :)

Which reminds me… what’s on YOUR list this year?

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This post is part of the 25 days of Christmas challenge. It’s never too late to play along!  You can check out the Flickr group too.

Last year I suffered through a grocery-store portrait studio session, bought cards, wrote and addressed 90% of them and never mailed them.

That bears repeating: I NEVER SENT THEM. Isn’t that awful? I was burned out before I even began. Just THINKING ABOUT CHRISTMAS CARDS MAKES ME TIRED.

I don’t like to put undue pressure on myself but the unavoidable fact is that I like beautiful cards. And beautiful paper. And I like it when my friends and family include photos in their cards and write more than just their name. I really cherish this effort.

I am acutely aware of the fact that if I want lovely Christmas cards I have to send lovely Christmas cards. I think the Christmas card tradition is one that’s worth keeping alive (don’t you?) but my motivation leaves me faster than a bat out of hell even before I even get started.

Well, I think I found a solution that works best for me.

1) With the help of a large cedar hedge, some clothespins and a big white bed sheet I rigged up an impromptu portrait background in the backyard. I bought the girls some Santa hats, dressed them in their finery, and took their photo.

2) I looked at a whole bunch of online Christmas card-making sites and decided that I would make a batch of photo POSTCARDS from moo.com. This meant that I didn’t have to a) have photos printed separately and b) envelopes get cut out of the equation entirely. Woo hoo!

The main reasons I went with moo.com was:

• The price. It cost less than a dollar per card, including shipping.
• The paper. I’ve ordered business cards from Moo before and I know the paper is good quality (this is important to me).
• The variety. I liked the fact that I could upload as many photos as I want. I could, in fact, upload a maximum of 60 different photos and get 60 different postcards back. I should point out however, that the postcards don’t have a Christmas design. i.e. there are no graphics of candy canes or wreaths or snowmen. The “Christmas” is all in the photo.

I ordered a batch of 60 cards; 30 of which are three different different photos of the girls and 30 photos of squirrels and chipmunks eating peanuts. I was going to order them with a printed Merry Christmas message on the back (this is a free option) but I decided to leave them blank and just write the message in myself. I am inwardly calling these NEW YEARS CARDS and telling myself that it doesn’t really matter if I don’t get them in the mail before December 23 or not. Having them pre-printed with a holiday messages would have been too restrictive. (Although I guess I could have had them printed with “HAPPY WINTER” but then again I would have lost the opportunity to write something clever about chipmunks. Besides, I could use the chipmunks any time of year!)

3) This week I will refine my recipient list and buy a roll of stamps. I’ve resolved not to do them all in one go. I’ll dash one off here, another one there, and mail them as I go. It’s less painful for me that way.

We got our cards in the mail yesterday and they turned out really well. They’re glossy and gorgeous and the card stock has the right amount of heft (as I had expected).

BUT: if you’re going to go with an online printing service I have one suggestion …  make sure your photos are light and bright with a decent amount of contrast. Two of the pics I uploaded were on the darkish side, and the result came back even darker. They’re not so dark that I’m going to pitch them, just enough to make me notice.

One thing to strike off my to-do list. Yay!

I have to tuck this one under the fold in case someone reads it over my shoulder:

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