17 « December « 2012 « Frank's Place

I thought we had escaped it. I was wrong. Sadly, I was so wrong. Tracy’s side of the family was in town the first week of December and we did an early Christmas with their kids and Frank and Anne Marie. So we were semi-dressed in semi-Christmas garb. Or should I say holiday garb? Can we still say Christmas? Is it legal. Oh well I’ll risk it.

Anywho, we were kinda dressed up and the idea of taking a picture for a family Christmas card was floated, much like a stale air-biscuit in church. You can look it up in the urban dictionary here: He who smelt it…

Then she got the great idea that instead of standing in front of the tree we should be lying down in front of it. It was, she claims, the only way Anne Marie could participate. You know because there is no way I could hold her up for the 3.7 milli-seconds it takes for a camera shutter to groan it’s way to completion. I knew the real deal. She doesn’t like the way either of us currently look in pictures or real life.

To be clear, she looks great. Even though I have dropped 22lbs I still have about 40 to go, so the prone in front the tree position was probably to keep my gut out of the yule tide shot.

We were off to a bad start and it got worse. Since my little sister, aka the warden, lives in Jersey we were devoid of proper organization. The following pictures detail some of the chaos.

At first the kids wouldn’t cooperate. Thank God. I thought once AM started to melt down we might be out of the whole deal. But alas, she rallied.

Then Frank started to act up. Was this the breaking point? Nope, as hard as he tried, bless his little uncooperative heart, it just wasn’t enough.

Then Mommy disappeared. It seems she was not adorned with the proper beautification products. I mean how long does she think an overweight 45 year old, a 3 year old, and a 8 month old can stay like this?

That’s when despair set in. It was inevitable. Sadly I cracked first, then Anne Marie, then Frank. Although I’m suspicious that Frank’s despair was at me and Anne Marie, not at the one person responsible for all this.

Here is what true exasperation looks like.

Three tired mice

Trust me this was not staged. Unbeknownst to me, my sister-in-law Rachel just kept taking pictures throughout the whole ordeal. She ended up with almost 135 photos.

Eventually we all got it together, as much as that group could and managed a servicable Christmas card picture.

SPOLIER ALERT> If you’re on our mailing list avert your eyes in

3…

2…..

1….

All we got

Of the 135 shots Rachel took, this was the only serviceable one. And yeah, Frank appears to be asking God why he is being punished with membership in this family.