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Saturday. I didn’t sleep so well even though I fell asleep soon after 11.00pm. Early for me but I was kaput. Still am. Not a nice week, not very cold but really dark. One more day of darkness and then it’ll start getting better. That really cheers me up.
Finally I have cable!! I still couldn’t figure out how much it’ll cost me. One e-mail says one thing and one letter says another thing. Cable Guy wrote that he’ll be here on Monday evening. I don’t care if he comes or not, I already planned to call a nice mom and let her help me with that and the insurance. It would be so nice to end the year with everything arranged.

Sweet Rob from weight2lose2013.wordpress.com nominated me for the “Very Inspiring Blogger” Award! Thank you Rob!!

You know already that I’ll break some of the rules. No questions to answer this time and I think you know more than 15 facts about me. And if there is anything else you’d like to know, please ask me!
I’m not nominating anyone but if you’d like to have this (or any) award, just let me know and I’ll give to you… That way, you don’t feel the pressure to participate.

For the past 11 years, I made my own Christmas’ e-cards. On the first one, only my oldest son was there dressing like Santa and then I added a few Holidays’ decorations around and some text. With the years, more kids came and taking the picture was every time more difficult.
I set myself a deadline for taking the picture and sending the e-mails. That is always the 22nd of December.
This year, my kids are going to be with the man the next days so I had to take the picture earlier than usual. That happened yesterday.
Since I remember how hard and stressful the previous years were at the time of the photo shoot, I started since last Monday to warn (read threaten) my kids.
“On Friday, as soon as you get home from school, I will take the Christmas picture. That means that I’ll be VERY stressed because it’s dark outside and also because you move or cry or put your hands in front of your faces and do stupid things. This time, start crying NOW because I already lost the patience in advance and believe me, you don’t want that kind of mother on Friday”.
I made them tried the hat and told them exactly what I expected. No time to lose.

Of course that Friday came and one of them had to rebel against me. This year it was my daughter’s turn. When I said: “Go to your room and take a red shirt”. All the others did it but she decided she wanted a dress, so she put on the red shirt and on top of it, a fuchsia dress. I almost gagged. I tried reasoning with her: “That’s a summer dress and it’s NOT red”… Tears came… Too many tears. I then remembered a red dress she had and went to pick it for her. I said: “Now you need a white shirt below so you’ll look better”.
I don’t like mismatching reds (I know, I have some issues). She wasn’t happy and started to cry again, this time letting ALL the snot fall on the red dress.
My stress level was HIGH… I cleaned the dress but then it was wet. She didn’t stop crying. Then she didn’t want the hat… of course!

Every year I say: “This is THE LAST TIME!!” but I keep doing it because the entire year(s) passed and I seldom wrote/replied to any e-mail from friends or family. When I did, I didn’t add the kid’s picture that everybody keeps asking. Many times I write: “Wait till December, a picture with all of them is a rarity and not easy to achieve”.

Once my daughter stopped crying, I made them sit on the couch and started shooting pictures.
I think I broke my own record. Only 38 pictures AND more than a good one!!
Some years I had to settle for a mediocre photo because my blood pressure was too high and my kids didn’t collaborate at all.

In 2008 I couldn’t make them stay all together so I had to improvise or cut out the best face I found.

In 2009 they all had angry faces. When they were smiling, one of them had the eyes closed.

That’s a collage I made to my mom last year trying to explain how difficult it is to get 5 kids looking fine. I cried twice between the 107 pictures I took. My third son was a pain in the ass and the few pictures where he wasn’t whining, some other was closing the eyes or putting their hands somewhere. (Mostly nose).

I was VERY tempted to go for the Merry F#$%ing Christmas many times.

I’ll post this year’s card as soon as it’s ready.

~ by DotedOn on December 20, 2014.