Photos for holiday cards (aka I'm a glutton for punishment)

I came across this blog entry about rules for holiday photo shoots and I must share.

Great stuff. Rule #2 is brilliant. Why oh why did I never think of that? 1 and 2 are pretty useful as well.

A brief jaunt through the old harddrive would produce the 30-some-odd photos my sister took in an insane attempt to get a family photo for the holiday card.

Since we're Jewish and most of our friends are not, we send out New Year cards. I like to pat myself on the back and think it's a brilliant idea for two reasons: #1. No worry about covering all the holidays/trying to find generic winter cards (because while Chanukah photo cards do apparently exist, they are very good at hiding. Chanukah photo cards = The Jewish mom's bigfoot) and #2. It can be done AFTER the chaos of the gift-giving holidays

Ever since the twins were born, I've been a big fan of photo cards. When the twins were toddlers, dh was deployed and I apparently had a death wish. I had an exact vision of the holidy photo I wanted. It involved me wearing my military wife locket in Bubbe's chair (dh's grandmother's wingchair), the girls in their pretty new fancy Chanukah dresses, a picture of dh in uniform next to dh's boots (when you're stationed in the desert, they issue you different boots from your everyday uniform) which would hold a single rose from the boquet he sent me while deployed.

If you have children and/or have tried to photograph children, I assume you're rolling around on the floor right now laughing at my insanity. Feel free to pause here until you can see through the tears that I'm sure your laughter has caused.

My sister came to take the picture. G-d bless her, she tried and tried and tried and tried some more. We got lots of photos of the kids climbing on me, running away, grabbing for the rose, trying to step into dh's boots, and other random "fun." We did not, however, get anything remotely resembling the picture I had imagined. We didn't even get a shot that could be called acceptable. We did, however, wind up with a funny story to share, a chance to commiserate with other parents (particularly those with more than one child) who also had delusions of grandeur, and lots of pictures I can use when my kids grow up and try to pull that, "It's all your fault," card. I think not. Look at the crap you put me through. Your father was deployed. My life was stressful as hell. All I wanted was one decent photograph, but would you comply? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. You insisted on actively trying to make my life miserable. I shouldn't be blamed for your problems. I should be commended for not selling you on ebay.

Whoops, we took a brief detour into Tangentland. Sorry about that.

Anyway, yeah, taking holiday pictures can be stressful.

Anyone have any stories about taking holiday pictures (or taking pictures in general) of the kids to share? I'm all ears. It's even better if you share the photographic evidence.