Seasonal Madness

It's that time of year again.... while we try not to take part in the rampant consumerism that generally signals this time of year we do create a bit of madness of our own.

Years back I started baking for people in place of gifts... no one really needs stuff - but good food? Oh yes! The cookies that have become tradition take HOURS to make and there are multiple steps and lots of waiting in between each. The cookies are just to yummy and I fear retaliation if I don't hand them out.

On top of that we took a small picture of all of us (Myself, Paul, Parker and Monster) 5 years back and we are always surprised to find people with the photo still on their fridge or somewhere... so we have to bribe the cats and set the timer on the camera and see if we can get a decent shot... a crazy feat every time, there is always a little blood drawn after the 3rd or 4th attempt to get a picture with all 7 of our eyes open.

Last year for the first time we pulled together our first holiday letter. Was it a lame attempt to get away from taking that silly Christmas photo? yes. Was it a feeble shot at not having to write such long passages in each card? Naturally (and naturally it doesn't work!). People seemed to like it... even my Grandma Betty commented that my uncles were impressed. Fine - I guess we do another letter to tuck inside those cards.

Speaking of cards... I am not sure when we started making our cards... taking a photo, printing it (getting it just right), cutting the prints, sticking them on to the 100% recycled or tree free cards is important to us.

There is nothing that we can skip or leave out and it is always made that much ore crazy by that fact that one or both of us goes somewhere far away over the holidays. Last year we were in St. Paul for more injections, the year before that Jessica was in India/Nepal, before that St.Paul again.... This year Jessica will be in Europe until the day before Christmas. It's a lot of work but our friends love it and so I guess we do as well.

Tonight the huntfor the perfect photo for our card begins!

Happy crazy season!