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My Big Fat Cuban Family

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The Great Christmas Card Challenge of 2011

December 19, 2011 By Marta Darby 3 Comments

I love the tradition of exchanging Christmas cards. I don't know if my parents ever sent out Christmas greetings, but I remember being 18 years old and buying my first pack of Christmas cards. My family had just moved to Orange County from the Los Angeles area where I had left all of my old friends. 

It was 1973 and I was still regularly communicating with them via U.S. mail. So sending Christmas greetings seemed to be a very natural thing.

In 1976 my local one-hour photo booth started offering Photo Holiday Greetings. I jumped on that one immediately and have never missed a year. I, personally, love getting Photo Christmas cards. I love seeing friends change from year to year. I love watching their families grow and their kids change. I save each and every one in that year's Christmas album. 

This year, I was looking for a photo to use for our card. I take thousands of photos so that shouldn't be too difficult. Except for the fact that I wanted something with all 6 of us in it. And Adam lives somewhere at the top of California, 12 hours away. What to do?

I found a photo of all 6 of us from Lucy's graduation which I kind of adored. 

Lucy's graduation

I was happy with how we all looked and I thought our personalities totally showed through and as you can see, we were all in it. But Lucy vetoed it because she has since cut her hair short and that photo was "sooo last year." (Technically, it was this year, and she's actually talking about the school year calendar, but that's not important right now.)

I also really love this one from when Adam came down to visit on Easter. How cute are we?

Fam pic

But again, Lucy and the short hair thing. I have no photos of the six of us together and Lucy's short hair. What to do?

I had to design my own, of course.

Hey, I'm Cuban. I'm all about "resolviendo.*"  (*that's the Cuban way to say "improvising.") 

Christmas Card 2011

Merry Christmas from the Darbys! 

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Filed Under: Cuban Christmas, My Big, Fat, Cuban Family, My Kids Tagged With: Christmas card design, Christmas greetings, Christmas photo greeting, Merry Christmas

Previous Post: « Lovers of Rice Unite! (A Winner)
Next Post: 12 Days of Cucufate »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. bohemian babushka says

    December 20, 2011 at 8:36 am

    LOL I bow before your genius once more. BB2U

    Reply
  2. Amanda says

    December 20, 2011 at 5:48 pm

    I look forward to your card every year! =)

    Reply
  3. Taleah says

    December 22, 2011 at 9:47 am

    You are simply amazing! Wishing you & your beautiful Familia a very Happy & Merry Christmas! much <3!!!

    Reply

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For a while there, I was overwhelmed by the once easy task of documenting my day-to-day life.Everywhere I looked, people moved on to high production video and I was hopelessly lost, so I put writing on the shelf and happily got caught up on all the seasons I’ve missed from the Great British Baking Show.But then, as I often say, “life is in session,” and my life was accumulating entire chapters before I could even type, “Oh, the Cubanity!”Which brings us to today. I’m starting to dip my toe back into writing online. Mostly, I miss the writing and telling about my extraordinarily ordinary life and the daily happenings at Casa de la Loma.So, tell me: Do you have any questions for me as I get back into the over-sharing of my days? 👀#mybigfatcubanfamily #belikemarta #callmewella #mbfcf
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Marta Verdes Darby is a Cuban-American food blogger in South Orange County.

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