Christmas Pictures Over the Years

You know that scene in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation when Clark gets trapped in the attic and ends up wearing some Gloria Swanson-esque turban and watching old movies?

That's me every year when I open the decoration box that has the collection of Christmas pictures through the years.  I end up weeping, while the kids play the annual edition of "which dang baby is that one again?"

It never occurred to me to take a yearly Christmas picture.  My parents, being smarter than I am, started the tradition for us when Lotus was just a baby, and they watched her while I was at work.  Thank God they did, because with the strange gap of 2003, I have a picture from every year we've had children, and I clearly get more emotionally unstable about their importance to me every year.

So today, when I unpacked the pictures, I got all weepy, and decided I should scan them in to the computer, in case anything ever happened to the originals.  And then when I saw the horrible state most of the pictures were in, both in terms of composition, and quality, I figured I could go ahead and pretty them up as best I could.

Let's see how long it takes before I start getting all weepy again.

2002

Lotus- 5 months old- living room of my parents' house in Walled Lake, Michigan

This was the one that started it all.  Mom and Dad took the picture, had it printed, and gave me a framed copy.  Look how adorable!  Look at the cheeks!  Oh my gosh, it's like baby Lotus ate regular Lotus!  And she can't even sit up yet, so she's propped up in that ubiquitous Boppy Pillow every first time mom gets.  Random question- I think my friend Heather got me that pillow- is that right, Heather?

2004

Lotus- two years old- Windyke Country Club, Memphis, Tennessee

So, being lazy and not yet appreciating how much these yearly pictures would come to mean to me, I dropped the ball on 2003's picture, and we skip directly to 2004.  By now, I was pregnant with Joaquin, we had moved to Mississippi, and we would attend "Breakfast with Santa" at Ken's parents' country club for the next two Decembers.  Here's Lotus, wearing one of those adorable little velvet numbers that you cry when they're too old to wear, looking all sweet.

2005

Lotus and Joaquin- three years and six months- Windyke Country Club, Memphis, Tennessee

The second "Breakfast with Santa".  I'm not sure what the kids are doing, but they're clearly simultaneously ignoring Santa and causing him some logistical problems.  Again, Lotus is in one of those velvet dresses I miss having a little girl to dress in.  

2006

Lotus and Joaquin- four years and eighteen months- front room of the house in Olive Branch, Mississippi

Our first attempt at the "do it yourself Christmas picture".  The greyhounds kept getting in the way, and that furry lump next to Lotus is Stella, trying to nose her way into the action.  Joaquin is in the middle of saying the word that he learned that day- "hat!"  And man- that carpet that they're sitting on was filthy.  I'm cringing right now, thinking of how gross that carpet was, and that I let my babies sit on it.  Ew.

2007

Lotus, Joaquin, and Gabriel- five years, two years, and six months- in front of the fireplace in the Olive Branch house, Mississippi

The first of many fireplace pictures we'd end up taking.  Also, you'll notice that I reused the red and grey jersey shirts that the big kids had worn the year before.  And Gabriel's shoes!  My sister-in-law gave them to me, and I loved those shoes.  They dutifully served two Donaldson children, back-to-back, before disappearing into thin air.  Best of all in this picture?  Gabriel's face.  I die!

2008

Lotus, Joaquin, Gabriel, and Jude- six, three, eighteen months, and three months- fireplace again! Olive Branch, Mississippi

I love how two years in a row the number of kids increases.  That cracks me up.  Also filed under "cracks me up" is the fact that I clearly tried to match the boys' clothes, but found nothing suitable for Lotus.  And don't even look at the feet.  Every single year the shoe situation is what almost makes me call "Uncle!" on the whole picture.

2009

Lotus, Joaquin, Gabriel, Jude- seven, four, two and one year(s) old- that damn fireplace again, Olive Branch, Mississippi

This was the year that I swore I would never again take a picture in front of this fireplace.  I hated it.  First of all, why do you even need a fireplace in Mississippi?  Second of all, gas prices skyrocketed while we lived there, so we had the neighbor convert the thing from gas to wood burning.  Only the fireplace wasn't built for burning wood, and so it would frequently flood the entire house with smoke, setting off every smoke alarm in the neighborhood and very nearly killing us.  Which is exactly what happened while I was trying to set up for this picture.  The stupid Duraflame log I'd lit started filling everything with smoke, I had to air the whole house out, track down all the kids again, and convince them that they were not going to die if they sat that close to the fireplace.

And you know what?  You don't even see a damn fire in the picture!

2010

every single person in the whole Clan- ages varied and occasionally lied about- in front of another fireplace, West Simsbury, Connecticut
 I'd been thinking about how I really appreciated the Christmas pictures I received where the whole family was in the shot, and not just the kids.  Don't get me wrong, all the kids I ever see in the Christmas pictures sent to me are adorable, but there is something very satisfying about seeing the whole family.  So this was the first year I made everybody endure the photo shoot, which I quickly learned meant my workload would increase exponentially.  But bless my dear husband's heart, he got me both a tripod and   Photoshop for this picture, so I could take 15 different shots and layer them altogether so that we looked like a faintly normal family.  Jude, as usual, cried, and at least one person pictured has no shoes.

This year's picture has been taken, Photoshopped, and sent to the printer.  It's already made me cry, but not from nostalgia.  More from sheer frustration.  Oh, and the fact that the newest member of the family is included, which means I have to suffer the humiliation of mailing out pictures with my grotesquely swollen self is front and center.  I need to time out these pregnancies better, so they don't occur during the month of November or December.

There you are- nine years' worth of Christmases, in eight pictures.  What about you?  Do you do Christmas pictures at all?  Do you include the whole family?  Do you take them yourself, or hire someone to do the agonizing for you?  Include links to a Christmas picture blog post, if you have one!