Friday, December 2, 2011

Christmas Past

This is our 13th year of wacky Christmas photos. Many thanks to my mom, who has taken most of the pictures (and to my dad for all his moral support), to my brother, Pete, who took the picture in 2000, and to my brother, Dan, who took the photo and ROCKED the Photoshop in 2006. We hope you enjoy this little retrospective. It's so fun to watch the kids grow!!!

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1999: "Dan and Bek receive a special delivery"

The idea to do spoof photo cards was Dan's. Seemed like a good idea to me, and since we'd just had our first child, it was a good time to start. Not everyone appreciates the tradition. Some people who got this card (or saw it displayed in the homes of recipients) wondered, "Why are they putting that child into a mailbox?"

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2000: "It's My Parole Officer"

We were kind of thin on ideas. But Ledon was all about the phone at this age so we took some phone pictures. Dan was concerned about some recipients being offended by the caption so we issued an alternate version with a caption about talking to Santa (I can't even remember what it was, it was so bland.)

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2001: "Mama, what does C.O.D. mean?"

Well, we'd gotten Eiledon via US Mail, so we went for consistency :) The caption refers to the ridiculous expense of having a child. You probably can't see it in this scan, but the receipt Eiledon is holding is actually a Best Buy receipt, which is pretty appropriate for our family :)

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2002: "Housework never used to take this long."

This was before we went digital, so the photo was captured by my mom shooting a whole roll of film as we tossed laundry around. 24+ exposures and only one--ONE--was usable. Luckily, it was also a fantastic picture!

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2003: "Krispy Kreme: Catnip for People"

This was our first card that was topical in nature. Krispy Kreme had just come to Minneapolis amid reports of people waiting in line for HOURS to purchase the airy confection. We had noticed that these donuts had a pronounced effect on our children's behavior, much like catnip to our furry friends, so we went that route for the caption. It was certainly "of its time" as Krispy Kreme has vanished from the Twin Cities market. A fad, indeed.

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2004: "Election '36: Is it us? Or is election season getting a bit too long?"

Another topical comment. We (at least Dan and I) were so exhausted with all the campaign rhetoric, attack ads, lawn signs, etc. that we thought it would be good to make fun of it. We officially launched our kids' campaigns for president in the 2036 elections. Gavin's slogan? "Gavin Alexander Fergus Moir: His name is REALLY long!"

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2005: "We were going to do a normal card this year but God said otherwise."

This was the year our house was struck by lightning so we joked that we'd taken that as a sign NOT to do a normal Christmas picture. We didn't quite get the "electrocuted" effect, though. With the exception of Dan, we looked more like we'd escaped a fire. Gavin was FURIOUS about having to have gel in his hair and wasn't too cooperative. This was the first year we had digital, at least, so we were able to go until we had a decent shot and then, gratefully, stop.

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2006: "Peace. With love, US 4"

I hope we didn't peak too early. Dan thought we should do an album cover and we chose The Joshua Tree. Again, Gavin had a serious issue with the hair gel and Eiledon REFUSED to portray a boy until we bribed her. My brother, Dan Fergus, took the photo on our deck and then worked his photoshop genius to get the proportions correct, put in the Joshua Tree National Park background AND put Edge's hat on Dan (it was the one costume piece we couldn't come up with.) This one is still my all-time favorite.

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2007: "We really, really tried. But in the end, we knew we couldn't top last year's card so we just gave up."

True dat. Still, this was fun to do and if you have the actual card (rather than this scan) you can read some of the facetious alternative ideas we nixed including "Land of the Lost" and "Quest for Fire." Who knows if those will re-surface in future years :)

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2008: "Feb 16, 2009, 11:59pm: "Maybe you were right. Let's just get cable.""

Another topical card, we were making fun of the date all television was supposed to be digital, requiring either a converter box or cable TV/satellite. It was a stretch of the truth: we already had cable and had only purchased the converter in case we dropped it some time in the future. AND, of course, the date of the switch was delayed a while beyond February 16th. In any case, we actually had all these crazy wires and cables lying around the house and it was fun to just randomly dump them all over the room. Gavin holding the 'rabbit ears' literally on his head and Eiledon trying to plug a cable into Gavin's nose just cracked me up :)

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2009: "We wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas. And we would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids!”

Dan has this horrible, ugly, green, V-neck shirt that’s completely falling apart and he STILL insists on wearing it now and then, despite my best efforts to throw it out when he’s not paying attention. One October evening we were chatting at the dinner table while the kids were watching Scooby Doo on TV and Dan suddenly said, “Hey! Shaggy’s wearing my green shirt!” We looked at each other and our jaws dropped: our Christmas card concept had just been determined. Since we had recently gotten our dog, Brubeck, we figured it was a perfect way to introduce him. What amazes me most is how many people told us they didn’t get it at first, even with the caption and the ghost flying out of the window. In most cases, it was one of their kids who said, “Duh, Mom. It’s Scooby Doo!”

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2010: “BRUBECK!!! JACK-JACK!!! If you guys CAN’T get a long, you can just FORGET about that chicken PATE in your Christmas stocking!”

This one was Eiledon’s idea. Brubeck and Jack-Jack STILL don’t get along and any time the poor cat’s feet hit the floor, Brubeck comes running after him until he’s back up on the cabinets. They’ve knocked over a few things in their time together, to be sure! Eiledon imagined they knocked down the Christmas tree and I was yelling at them. What makes this photo is Brubeck breaking the fourth wall with the perfect, “Oh, crap” look on his face. Jack-Jack, in typical cat fashion, looks like he doesn’t give a rip.


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2011: “We wish you a Merry Christmas. The Skywalkers.”

Yes, it's true. We're nerds. All of us. As if you didn't know that already. Anyway, we'd had this one planned for quite some time, but we didn't want to do too many in a row where we were dressing up in costumes. This just seemed the right year for it. We had the Darth Vader voice changer mask and the light sabers and Dan wore his grad school graduation robe as a cape. Everything else was borrowed or made (the Queen Amidala headpiece wasn't easy, but it was pretty fun to try to figure out how to do it with the least possible effort and cost.) Worked out pretty well, I'd say.

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Well, thanks for walking down memory lane with us! Hope you enjoyed our wacky shenanigans. Merry Christmas to all!