O Christmas Card Part 7

After finally continuing my family's stroll down Christmas card memory lane yesterday, I was inspired to soldier on and finish this series once and for all. If you have missed any of the previous chapters in this compelling story of "How I Developed an Unhealthy Obsession with Christmas Cards," then you can catch up on Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five and Part Six. 

When we last left, I was finally out of high school, which you think would possibly begin the inevitable demise of my involvement in the family Christmas card. If anything, it just made everything more involved, as we were no longer children who could only be expected to get along and pose for so long.

2005

When I see photo, all I can think is "Giiiiiirl what you doing with that tie?" Like this is post-Avril Lavigne Sk8tr Boi and also, it's Thanksgiving. Yes, I admit- this one was not a staged photo shoot. Even the Scalera's have to recycle a photo every now and then. 

2006

Another fall photo shoot, because nothing says "Merry Christmas!" like being barefoot among fallen leaves. This is another case of my mom wanting us to be wearing similar things but slightly different, you know, to really highlight our personalities. And what better way to do that than with... sweaters!

2007

I'm not sure why the quality of this card is so bad, but I'm guessing that the good ones were sent out to people and all that was left for the book was this reject one. This was another double whammy of a year in the Scalera family, as it was my sister's first pageant title and I graduated from college. Becky had begun her freshman year at Plymouth State University as I ended my senior year, hence the t-shirts. Since I didn't actually walk in graduation, I didn't even have the official garb, which meant I had to borrow this mortorboard from someone. I mean, the tassel doesn't even match the PSU colors! (Again, continuity hasn't always been one of our strong points.) This also marks the first year that we tried to get Felix the cat to be in the picture, which has actually proven to be more work than taking photos of children. First of all, he is completely black, resulting in only his creepy eyes to be seen in pretty much every photo we've ever taken of him. Also he's kind of a jerk and tries to scratch us to get away, so we usually end up with about four usable photos. 

2008

As the years went on, it became increasingly more difficult to schedule the card photo shoot. With me living an hour away and my sister being in college, the day you planned to take the photo was the day you took the photo. I'm guessing the weather must not have cooperated on this day, because otherwise it doesn't seem to make much sense that we were crammed in the corner of our living room when we could have been outside at one of my father's many man-made photo ops. My mom thought this one was really cheeky because you were supposed to question who the "nice" one is (I think we all know the answer to that). There was actually an entire series (complete with costume changes) of naughty vs. nice that, thanks to the age of digital, I have found and created a small collage for your holiday enjoyment:

an afternoon of our lives we'll never get back

Like I said, it only gets worse with age...

2009

Once you get to 20+ years of Christmas cards, it's almost impossible not to recycle an idea here and there. My mom is also a big fan of the "then & now" motiff, as illustrated by the picture in the upper left corner of my sister and I as angels in our church Christmas pageant (which was probably the last time both of us were at a church together). Being on a church budget, we weren't rolling in fancy floating halo money, hence the gold garland that was simply bobby pinned to our heads. My mom had the ultimate vision that we would recreate the photo with the same garland and white tops, but it would be totally ironic because we were all grown up, therefore, no longer "angels." This was also the year we got it together and realized our random living room backrounds weren't going to cut it, so we graduated to posing in front of a curtain. This was another one that involved a series style photoshoot, the likes of which actually made it onto the card as apposed to the 2008 pictures that ended up on the cutting room floor. 

We're starting to approach a very exciting time in Christmas card history... the year that Steve and I started our very own card (but don't get it twisted, we are still heavily featured in the family card, much to Steve's dismay of having to do all of this twice).

Stay tuned!

~L