Christmas is coming
Christmas is coming, if you haven’t noticed. A couple of weeks ago, my
mom dragged me and my sisters off to a photographer friend of hers who
took photos for the family Christmas card. Last year’s card was
hilariously awkward, because mom tried to photoshop. I’m actually
quite impressed, because she hardly knows how to send a text message
and she definitely doesn’t know how to attach a file to an email. The
fact that she managed to lighten her teeth and paste all our heads
onto the card without my help was quite amazing… but it still looks
like something that belongs at www.awkwardfamilyphotos.com.
So this year, I and my sisters, my mom and the two dogs went to a
photographer again. Two years ago we brought the cats with us as well.
When I got back that day I was starving and exhausted with a headache
resembling the feeling I imagine you get when your head is being
crushed by a war tank (I saw a photo of it, but I’ll save you the
image since this is a Christmas post. Granted, red is the colour of
the season and there was a plenty of red, but I’ll save that for the
Christmas Gore Advent Calendar, starting December the 1st).
This photographer had his studio in his 1 room apartment. There was
either tobacco or weed lying clearly visible on the table. I’m
pro-legislation of pot but since it’s currently illegal it amused me,
particularly as he wore a batik coloured hippie shirt and would fit
the stereotype to a T. Anyhow, even without cats, taking a photo of
our family + dogs isn’t an easy task. You can forget about trying to
getting anything well-balanced since no one dresses like the other: my
older sister has short hair with three sticky dreadlocks in the back
like a mullet and dresses in hiphop-themed clothes; my younger sister
dresses in short-short-skirts and deep U-necks that shows off almost
everything; I dress in t-shirt and jeans and to top it off you got my
mom in her church clothes and cross necklace and also a curious 10cm
long scar inflicted by a blade running across her throat. Just how
much creepier and trashier can we get?! (I say that with love)
I didn’t really want to be there at all, and neither did the dogs that
were a pain in the ass to get to sit still and look into the camera.
Bagheera is hyperactive and tries to run off if you don’t hold on to
him. Cindy is a bit more pliable until she gets annoyed, which she got
pretty quickly since we had to run off after Bagheera all the time. I
can’t remember how many shots we had to take. If I wasn’t blinking or
looking mighty pissed off, then someone else was or the dogs had
decided to go to sleep or the light was wrong etc etc. In the best shot,
we sort of gave up on getting the dogs to look happy and
settled for miserable but within the frame. My mom thinks I can
photoshop happy-looking dogs into the photo instead, which I probably
could but won’t. I pasted some Christmasy things to it and
now I’m praying to the invisible pink flying unicorn (damn you,
spaghetti monster-infidels) that she doesn’t send it to anyone I care
about.