A holiday card to represent
The envelope arrives in the mail and with a tingle of excitement you know it’s the first holiday card of the season. The first of many more to come. Cards from friends you see almost everyday and family you maybe only see once every few years. A little note to say we’re thinking of you and wanted to share our love and life with you this Holiday season. Finding those cards in the mail always fill my heart with joy and I love seeing those smiling faces. The pressure to have a great card seems higher these days. In the world of Pinterest, Holiday cards have taken on a bit of a high end status.
I’d set up with a photographer friend that we would shoot each other’s family’s Christmas photo. But as time went by and November turned to December, I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t fake another holiday card. Holiday cards have become the ultimate Facebook status update. Who’s family looks picture perfect? Who hired a photographer and who didn’t? It just wasn’t what I wanted our card to be.
Growing up my mom always took weeks to put together the family holiday card. It always had at least a dozen photos of us throughout the year and a long letter of how our year was. She still does it that way. Although the letter has shorten now that we’re all grown. But it got me thinking, how could I sum up an entire year in one perfectly posed photo?
Shouldn’t a holiday card be about you, the real you? What are we trying to hide? Why do we care so much that people see a perfect photo of our kids? A photo that took bribery and probably a few tears followed by a stiff drink. Don’t we put enough pressure on our kids?
I couldn’t. One photo couldn’t do 2014 justice. Our year was filled with so many wonderful moments and moments of growth. Moments I felt I wasn’t perfect and moments I felt I was doing a pretty good job as a parent and a wife. We fumbled our way thru parenthood and learned to be an even better spouse to one another. We rejoiced when we got pregnant on just the second try instead of dozens of trys. We learned to listen to our hearts when we felt at our wits end. How can I choose one photo to represent all that was 2014. Our year and our family is so much more then one perfectly posed photo. We are messy. We are joyful. We are crazy for each other. We are doing the very best we can. No, one photo was not enough. I wanted the world (our friends and family) to see the real us. The real Weaver family and how our year looked. How much personality D grew into and how fiercely we love one another. I want to give a glimpse into our life this past year in a way that was real and honest. It’s not perfect, and honestly I wish I could have added more photos. But it’s us. Normal every day us. And of course printed on locally sourced recycled paper, because we’ won’t admit out loud that we’re a little hippie. 😉
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from our family to yours.
xoxo – Rachael
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