Picture this...

Sage says:

I might drag the family out for family picture day.  There is snow on the ground.  It is beautiful out.

It will probably involve fibbing to my husband. 

And bribing the children. 

It usually involves a whole lot of “SMILE, darnit, we are having fun.”  And we do.  When its done, they all giggle at how much mom turns into a psycho. 

Squirrel:  it reminds me of a sweet teenager we once knew (she’s grown now, with children of her own) who told us with such complete and utter belief, “Beauty is pain.”  (she was talking about tweezing the brows.)  Picture day is similar to tweezing. 

We are a two hour drive from the city and most portrait places.  I drove us to ABQ once, when we had two of our three kids.  Monte was a tiny baby, Bay was just walking.  We got in to the department store portrait studio.  And it was hot.  And stuffy.  And holy crap, did I mention hot?  We fell apart and that little college gal working the camera caught it all.  My hair was standing on end.  Apparently, it was also humid in there.  Bay cried, Monte cried and I felt like this was the peak of my failure as a parent.  Shane tried to make it work, but it just wasn’t any fun.  And we paid money for that fine experience. 

You’d think I would learn.  But, I want family portraits.  It is the one ‘normal family’ activity that I cling to.  Loved ones all tell me they much prefer our impromptu shots over the year.  Bayler on her horse, Monte marching and Keek dressing up.  Shane and I smiling for a selfie on the mountain gathering cattle. 

Squirrel:  That selfie of Shane and I is my favorite.  He wasn’t looking at the camera, but at me, and the camera caught the look a man gives the woman he loves more than anything.  Anytime I feel sad, I look at that picture.  It reminds me how lucky I am to have such love.  Somehow I don’t get that look when I am barking out orders, “Step closer.  NOT that close.  To the side.  No, the other side!”  “Smile, darnit!”  but he loves me, so we take the pictures. 

After the portrait studio fiasco,  I get out the camera and tripod and we pick a new spot on the ranch we have leased and everyone gets clean.  Well, mostly.  I never have it together enough to actually make us match or accessorize.  We are doing good to have hair combed and our best pair of jeans on (you know, with the fewest holes).   Shane always mentions that we only need to take one picture because I invariably use one of the first three that I take.  And I usually take at least a hundred.  But, now I stop halfway through and tell everyone to take the crazy picture.  The kids love that – and more often than not it ends up the family Christmas card picture. 

I like the family portraits.  We have taken one a year every year.  Each one shows a tiny step in this grand ride we call life.  Each one shows a piece of what we were like that year.  Each one is different, but they are all us.  Dad took pictures of us horseback one year – those are fun.  Mostly we just gather around a stump or a bale of hay, and I run back and forth from the camera to the group, clicking away.  I snap a little, but well, that’s just where I show that little teeny bit of compulsiveness that I have. 

Yup, I think I will drag the family out this week.  Its time for the annual portrait.  Maybe I will fill my pocket flask this year.  Maybe I will actually put it in my pocket!  Maybe you will see the flask in hand for the Christmas card! 

Shayla says:

I grew up posing almost yearly in front of an Olan Mills photographer. I’ve got everything from the 1970s polyester pantsuit pictures to the 1980s “I’m wearing a velour shirt and my mom tried to curl my hair and I hate it and want to die” awkward stage smile photos.

I never really understood the whole draw of family pictures until I had kids of my own.  Then it became this whole “why yes world, I DO make some beautiful children” right of passage to load them up and take them to Sears or JC Penney.

ADD Sidebar: When my two oldest were nearly three and one, I made an appointment on my husband’s day off to get our Christmas family photo taken at JC Penney. It was our worst year in regard to finances, in fact we were just short of federal poverty level, but I was bound and determined to take my $9.99 coupon and get my memory. The morning of that that ill-fated photo shoot, my daughter woke up with pink eye and my husband decided to cut his own hair with the clippers and after failing miserably shaved his head bald. Lots of people are bald. But “bald” is not particularly flattering on my husband’s pointy little head. To salvage the picture, I ran to the store and bought a cheap Santa suit that I could shove back into the box and return later and put the kids’ Christmas best back in their closets. Our little family sat in the waiting room of JC Penney with my husband dressed as Santa Claus and the kids and I all wearing pajamas. The photographer looked at me like I was nuts but I assure you it was the cutest damn picture, hiding that bald little head under a Santa hat and my daughter’s pink eye subtly looking more like a kid that just woke up Christmas morning.

Now the “in” thing to do is hire a photographer that goes with you on location and tries to capture you in your element. I’m pretty much over here thinking I don’t know what my element is.

And here is my confession of the day. With the exception of pictures taken at my daughter’s wedding last year, I have not had a professional family photo taken of my family since my youngest son was born. He will be fifteen in two weeks. (Holding my mom head in shame.) I’ve had the kids’ picture taken several times. And we have plenty of snapshots. But my own vanity has kept me from rounding the whole family up.

I’ve put on a lot of weight over the years. The older I get, the more I feel like my neck resembles Jabba the Hut, despite those camera tricks we all try like sticking our chin out or taking pictures from above. And while I feel like I want to show off my beautiful family, I kind of feel like they may not want to show off me. I’m embarrassed for them.  

So every year I vow that I will lose weight and we can have our picture taken “next year.”

Then I eat ice cream.

Maybe next year?