I can practically hear the hallelujah chorus in the background. The Christmas card picture has been taken and while not all that I had imagined, is pretty okay. I often tell myself I’m not a perfectionist, but I’m not so sure. More accurately, I think I’m a failed perfectionist. Mostly, I think I’ve accepted this about myself and no longer fight it. At least I don’t fight it for long.
However, now that this is a done deal, my perfectionist’s eye, which face it, I was born with, can’t stop seeing that this year’s “portrait in the life,” tells more truth than I would choose. Then it occured to me that getting the perfect family Christmas card, may really just be about removing, or hiding all that is not just right, not perfect. Looking effortless is a heck of a lot of work. And I don’t do that; don’t do that well, anyway.
What do I personally find not perfect about this picture? Well, before I get all lathered up taking my analysis on past the boundaries of reason, there are several imperfections that are so obvious, even the sunniest and most organically perfect of the positive hordes couldn’t have missed:
- The unswept sidewalk. The fact remains that our sidewalk, even if I had swept it an hour earlier, would have still looked like someone just came along and purposely threw and scattered a bale of pinestraw.
- The empty pots on either side of the door. They are beautiful pots – when they have something in them. Seasonal foliage would be nice: geraniums in summer, mums in fall, pansies in winter, and at Christmas, something piney with tiny white lights. Something’s going on with the garland around the door and the ivy growing on the bricks that I hope makes these empty pots less obvious.
(Here’s my defense, my cop out, which can’t help but reveal my failure as the
perfect perfectionist: We don’t use our front door that much, which means I don’t have a good excuse since the thing is basically just used as a photography set. The picture that would tell the truth of us would have been taken next to the door leading from the mostly messy garage that’s located between the freezer and the giant green trashcan. And that would just be strange)
Other small “imperfections” that say much more about H and M that is true for 2008 than their smiles and all around wholesome good looks include:
- The black hair elastic on M’s wrist.
- H’s Sidekick on the step next too her, as if it wasn’t so much her own attempt to remove it from view, as it abruptly flew out of her pocket without her knowledge.
Last, but not least, is Lily’s pose. I hesitate to even bring this one up because anyone with a dog and children and a camera knows that successfully bringing the three together is a dicey proposition. But, as cute as Lily’s pose is, she appears to be sitting like a human creature, nestled like a toddler between H and M on the step. I would have preferred if she was sitting more like what she really is – a canine. Also something about this shot gives the impression that H is holding Lily back (which she was). Younger, less mature children would have doomed any chance of success. M and H’s poses and smiles were remarkably consistent throughout the 30 shots I fired off.
So after wrestling with the costco.com website for an hour last night, I placed the order. They were dirt cheap ($41.68 for 250 cards), and I’ll just hope they don’t look it. Perfection not required.
Great photo, and you have way less pine straw on your sidewalk than I have sycamore leaves!