I’m not sure when Christmas pictures started making me crazy. It took a few years before I freaked out. I can tell you our first Christmas card photo was probably taken on Christmas Eve night. Scott had just gotten home from delivering for Meeks Lumber Company, and perhaps we’d had a cocktail or two already, wrapped the dog in tinsel to offset her bandaged ears, and generally just didn’t give a flying leap at a rolling donut if the Christmas photo turned out or not.

A year later, I think I threw up right after my mom snapped this picture of us in Fort Rucker, Alabama. Again Scott had just gotten home from work, but instead of his Meeks T-shirt, he’s wearing his Army flight suit now. I wasn’t throwing up because I was sick of Christmas pictures already. I was pregnant and puked for nine months straight with our first bambino. Our Staffordshire Terriers gave us a bit of trouble. Getting both dogs to look directly at the camera didn’t come easy. My mom might have waved some baloney around.

In Germany, the following year, my mom was there to get the picture for us. I still didn’t care at this point about our Christmas photos. I wasn’t even saving them yet. Years later, I regretted this to a terrible degree, until my great Aunt Toni died, and while going through her belongings after her funeral, to my delight and astonishment, I found every one of our Christmas pictures stacked in order by year. Aunt Toni, who never had children of her own, had saved all my annual Christmas letters too. I got to see how I’d grown as a writer, as a woman, and as a mother. I laughed. I cried. I ran right out and made copies of all these Christmas photos, putting them on Walgreen’s pretty Christmas cards so they looked lovely and legitimate. Clearly, by then, our Christmas pictures had begun to matter a great deal to me.

But before this Walgreens binge of remaking Christmas cards, I remember the yellow hat. Maybe it was this bright yellow Ducks Unlimited hat that birthed my Christmas card crazy. Scott might as well have worn a flashing light bulb on his head because that hat was blinding. As you can see, my husband won this battle. Two-year-old Cami wouldn’t look at the camera for anything that day, and Lacy, not a year old yet, cried when I pulled her finger out of her mouth. My mom taking the picture wasn’t happy, either if I recall, probably because Scott was acting like a toddler in his yellow hat. I’m mad as heck in this picture, but of course I’m smiling because this is who I’ve become already. A mad, smiling wife. Yes, it was definitely 1993 when my Christmas card crazy came out.

I find it ironic that this is the year I choose Jesus, Mary, and Joseph to grace our Christmas card and I’ve held onto this original card, unlike the other Christmas photos that I unearthed at my aunt’s house. Something in me must have known even then we’d need Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, the holy family, to teach us how to become a happy family.

Here is another ironic original, Peace on Earth, my backside. Nothing could be farther from the truth in 1998. I wanted a divorce, but come a white Christmas or white water or the wipe out of our family which I was contemplating, I had a smile on my face for the photo. Scott has never been a pretender. I think after my mom took this picture we both walked into the house and poured ourselves a drink. Continuing to drink until we were numb that night.

To spare you every single Christmas picture, I’m posting just a few of them. This one from December of 2000. Nearly to the day of when this picture was taken, I got saved. I don’t say this lightly. Like “saved” is tossed around in churches all the time. Like it’s a dime toss and you win an ashtray or something. Getting saved wasn’t some cheap, little thing in my life. Even the puppy in this picture sensed the presence of God the night it happened.

I’d taken her out to use the potty on Dec 20th. It was a super bright, super cold, middle of the night, night. I looked up at the stars, and suddenly He was there. The Maker of the Universe. Like in an instant there was no distance between heaven and earth, between me and God. Except sin. My sin was there, and I scooped up that trembling, little puppy and ran back into the house as fast as I could. Scared to death of God that night. Because I knew with every bone in my body He was real and right there.

Pretty soon in my bed, I found myself begging for mercy. Pleading for Jesus to forgive me. I knew I needed a Savior, and the Lord claimed me that night. In a swirl of light, I was saved. I was His. I was born again. I was so happy. I can honestly say I’m smiling in our 2000 Christmas picture. Scott is smiling too. Maybe nervously because he doesn’t know the Lord yet, and his wife can’t stop talking about Jesus, but this is the beginning of a new life for us. A second chance. A fresh start. We didn’t keep that puppy, she ended up with Oma and Opa at the ranch, but our family of five was about to grow like we never expected. Never could have imagined, dreamed, or hoped for before surrendering our lives to Jesus.

Yet, within two years, Cami is crying in our Christmas card photo because her Christian mama is being crazy. I can’t remember exactly why. I probably said something about her hair, or told her to suck it up in that itchy sweater I made her wear. John is a day old in this photo. I just got home from the hospital here. Seriously, I think we stepped out of our Ford Expedition and lined up the kids in the driveway, pulling those scratchy sweaters over their heads. My priority is getting this picture. “Yes, you can all welcome the baby after the Christmas card picture is taken right now! Precisely now! Absolutely, positively now before the sun goes down we are getting this done!”

As we added babies to our following photos, four boys in eight years, my crazy escalated. Below are some of our Christmas card reject photos. Can you tell I’m on edge? The Mama’s mad and we’re in plaid, should be our 2012 and 2013 Christmas slogans. Oma has taken nearly all our our Christmas card photos. God bless my mom for her patience and perseverance through the years.

After this 2013 photo session, because nobody would mind me, and the older kids mocked me, I cried, “That’s it! I’ve had it! We are done with these stupid Christmas card pictures! No more! Forever! I am DONE!”

But in 2014, for my birthday, Cami and Lacy surprised me with our first professional photographer for our Christmas card photo. To my great relief, everyone was on their best behavior for Kayla of Ashton Imagery. Taking last year’s picture was a delight for our family and I loved the photos. I thought I’d conquered my Christmas card crazy once and for all.

But here came crazy this year when I started trying to pull together our picture. Calling the older kids and asking them to come.

Jobs. Other commitments. “Maybe I just don’t want to be in the Christmas picture anymore,” presented a problem with our oldest kids. I tried to shake it off. The picture isn’t a big deal, I told myself. If they come, they come. If not, oh well.

Oh well.

Oh well.

I sighed this to myself for days. “Oh well.”

“Oh well, hell! I gave birth to all these kids,” whispered my Christmas crazy. The least they can do is fake a smile for their mama who has washed, cooked, and cleaned for them for 18 years. Not to mention sweating and freezing my behind off at their soccer games, and changing their poopie diapers all day, every day, for years and years changing crappy diapers for my ungrateful children.

See how my crazy rolls?

But I didn’t say this ridiculous stuff out loud because I know it’s crazy. Out loud I sweetly said, “If you don’t live here, you don’t have to be in the picture anymore.” And on some days, I meant it. But on other days “Oh well, hell!” won the day.

The day before taking the picture, I found myself on the phone practically begging Cami to come. Drew had to work that Saturday, but Cami was home doing nothing five minutes down the road. Okay, Cami and Drew have just moved into their first home, and Cami is still unpacking, but is this really more important than our family Christmas picture?

“Okay, I’ll come,” Cami sweetly agreed the day before Kayla was coming. Cami has a lot of her mama in her. She grins and bears a lot of things. “Oh well, hell!” she probably said as she hung up the phone with me. “Mom’s Christmas crazy is out again this year. Somebody get a stun gun.”

Why do I care so much about these Christmas card pictures anyway?

Honestly, I can’t quite tell you. I don’t quite know. In a way these photos have documented our life. Some years we’ve been genuinely happy on the cards. Other years not so much. Some years we’ve laughed. Other years we’ve had major blowouts doing the picture.

I hate that I get crazy over Christmas card photos. This year, I asked everyone how I did after taking pictures. “You were funny,” Cami said. “You did great,” said Lacy. “You were wonderful,” Scott assured me.

“I’ve still got you,” whispered my Christmas crazy.

A friend was here looking through our little red photo album of all our Christmas card pictures this past weekend. 26 years of Christmas photos. “You’re wearing the same sweater in like five of these pictures,” she pointed out.

“Am I?” I answered a bit horrified. The white sweater she addressed was only actually the same in two of the photos. The other three white sweaters just looked the same. I know they weren’t the same because I’m pregnant in two of these photos and my belly wouldn’t fit in that little, white sweater. But I had on the same blue sweater in two of the photos taken ten years apart, and I was standing there with my friend looking at the album while wearing the same grey sweater I wore in one of our Christmas card photos from eleven years earlier. Usually the youngest kids get new outfits because I love having them match when they’re little, but I always make do with my same old clothes in the Christmas cards so it certainly isn’t about showing off how stylish I am. Or how well-to-do or well-to-whatever our family is. Because, well, we are just a family with quirks and challenges and cheesy moments creating life and love.

Maybe it’s about life and love. Just showing up for it. Not just for the picture, but for our family. Just being pressed together for a moment in time. Documenting another year of doing family. Being family. Surviving family. Hopefully thriving in our big, crazy, beautiful, baffling, bumbling family. Another year of making the Christmas card crazy mama happy by smiling for the camera.

 

If you can relate, please leave me a comment or send me an email or message. I love your emails and messages. Thank you! And I’d love to hear I’m not the only mama out there who suffers from Christmas card crazy.