December
2012
Dear All
–
It feels
WRONG to be writing my X-Mas letter before December 25th. WRONG, I tell you.
But here I am, sort of organized, and working on my X-Mas letter as the cookies
bake in the oven. Call me Martha Stewart.
We spent
a good part of the year undoing the "granny" decor in this new house.
The orange balloon wallpaper in the kitchen is gone. So is the flowered
wallpaper in the boys' bedrooms and the dainty curtains in the TV room. After
one year in a home, you can't blame previous owners for ugly wallpaper or
window treatments. Please don't judge me for the fish wallpaper in the
bathroom; we haven't gotten around to peeling that off yet. I bet Martha would
judge me. [Steve: Martha would not judge you. She would see it as an opportunity for you to
express your creativity.]
The boys
are HUGE. Jonah's jeans are always too big in the waist and too short at the
bottom. I'm not sure what a bean pole is, but my kid is shaped like one.
(Martha would know what a bean pole looks like.) Ian grew about a foot this
year, but he's still kid-shaped enough to baby and cuddle.
Jonah
played soccer, made music on Garage Band, read a couple of books, rode his
bike, finished homework at the last minute, showed off in social studies, and
made stuff in Minecraft. Ian swam, built Lego things, drew pictures, solved
Portal 2 twice (X-Box and Mac), showed off in math class, and made stuff in
Minecraft.
Steve's
still working on Wall Street, although at a different bank. I'm writing stuff
for magazines, which is excellent fun.
We swam
up to the pool bar in Puerto Rico. We hunkered down in the dark after Hurricane
Sandy. We took the elevator to the top of the Empire State building and checked
out the penguins at the Aquarium in Boston. We drank beers and munched on
seafood in North Carolina. We made very serious pot roasts for some very silly
people. We sat in folding chairs at the edge of too many soccer matches. [Steve:
not TOO many . . .]
In short,
life was good in our typical sloppy, disorganized, random, definitely un-Martha
style. Hope yours was equally excellent.
Love,
Laura, Steve, Jonah, and Ian
Apt. 11d 
All of the Christmas cards we received this year were Children-Only on the front.
It seems that in my memories of past year, whole-family shots were more common, or at least very well represented. This year, everyone collectively decided, “We’re just putting the kids on the card to show how they’ve grown. No one wants to see how we parents have aged.”
Not necessarily an illogical decision, but it seems to have happened all at once.
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I think that kid-only cards are at least partially the result of the mom’s with cameras. The group shot used to be a shot at a photo studio (and the one we still get is). That’s a dying phenomenon. Now, group shots require 1) a group shot at a vacation venue 2) a willingness to ask a stranger to take a picture of the group — the only card I have with that is Asians (though I will not extend the stereotype beyond my one anecdote) 3) professional photo shoots. Add that to the fact that we moms all have great photos we’ve taken of ourfabulous looking kids, which set a tough standard of comparison of us oldies.
Love your letter and pictures.
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Our card this year had all 4 of us and the dog in bed under a quilt pretending to sleep*, with visions of “sugarplums” over our heads (we all had thought bubbles about things we love, like Doctor Who, Nintendo, etc.).
*The dog was not asleep. She had her eyes open with a “WTF are you insane people making me do” kind of look.
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I think bj is right about the twilight of the formal family picture. The only formal photography that we pay for these days is the $20 sibling package through school. We have lots and lots of good action shots of the kids taken either by my husband or the kids themselves. There aren’t nearly as many good pictures of us adults, but I tried really hard this year to make sure to include photos of my husband and me in the family photobook, which is our Christmas gift to the adults in our family. Sure, we’re not as cute, but it’s part of the historical record.
I find formal studio photographs kind of boring. Also, from what I’ve heard from my older relatives, in the golden age of studio photography, having a date with a photographer practically guaranteed that a child was going to get an unphotogenic contusion.
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Most of our whole family photos in years past were taken the babysitter or the grandparents. But as the kids get older, there are fewer babysitters, and the grandparents . . . how I miss my mother sometimes.
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Great card. Happy New Year.
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Thanks! You, too.
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