The Christmas Card Photo Shoot of 2010

It will go down in family history as The Year We Hauled the Red Chair Down to the Park.

Here's how the whole thing went down:

Eric and I went on a pre-Thanksgiving cruise (on Royal Caribbean's Allure of the Seas, which I still have to write about, but that's not important right now). That very same (pre-Thanksgiving) weekend, my son, Adam and his girl, Stephanie came down from Redding.

Eric and I got home on Tuesday night. Adam and Steph were taking Lucy and Jon back to Redding with them on Wednesday. And they were driving so they had to leave relatively early in the day. Amy Kikita had to work but she didn't start until 11. And so, exhausted and bleary eyed, all of us managed to get ourselves out of bed because I wanted my Christmas Card Photo Shoot, please.

Our next door neighbor, Raphael (the amazing pro photographer) agreed to get up and shoot us. (That works on multiple levels…)

And because I didn't want us just sitting there being all "Hey, look-at-us-with-our-just-for-the-photo-shoot-Christmas-card-faces on," I insisted he attempt to get the Real Darbys.

Which is why we were NOT wearing coordinated outfits. We don't coordinate in real life, so no coordinated dressing for the photo shoot.

I had Adam and Jonathan haul one of our red leather chairs down to the park. That was quite fun for the neighbors. (Actually, I think they're used to the UDB* – *Unusual Darby Behavior.)

Adam got into it right away. Big red leather chair in the middle of the park? Let them talk.

Here are my men. I love this.

Then me with my girls. (My eyes were more swollen shut than usual, but whatever…)

Then Rafe did a few of the kids.

How cute are they? And then….the silliness began.

We couldn't help ourselves. It was too tempting.

We were having a blast, but none of them sang out and said "Christmas Card is me!"

Until we hauled the big red chair out into the middle of the street. That's when we really dominated the  neighborhood. These were pretty much the favorites. I liked the element of surprise it adds.

But we finally all agreed on one that represented us best.

Even with Jon melted, we felt like this was ….US!

Your thoughts? Do you have a favorite? Tell me.

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