I have several posts coming to get caught up from the last few months, but just lately we have been busy getting ready for Christmas. One of my favorite things about the holidays is tradition. We have several Christmas traditions at our house. M and I bake, decorate, and – most importantly – eat Christmas cookies. I play Feliz Navidad repeatedly to annoy my husband, who for some reason is not the avid Jose Feliciano fan that I am. We drag the decorations down from the attic (and by we, I mean my husband) and proceed to unpack approximately 1,000 Hallmark ornaments from their original boxes. Okay, we don’t really have that many, but there are a LOT of them, each one bringing back special memories. M & G each have one from their first Christmas, there is one from our honeymoon, several that document M’s varied interests over the years – John Deere tractors, fire trucks, Star Wars – and many, many more.

But by far my most inevitable Christmas tradition is the one that begins around December 18, which is when I panic, realizing it is only a week until Christmas day and I haven’t sent out our cards. So I rush to get a decent picture of the kids, design a card, get cards printed, pay extra to have them actually get to me before Christmas Eve, then hand them out in person to everyone I see on or around Christmas day. I like to pretend that hand-delivering Christmas cards adds that special, personal touch. Those I don’t see get their cards as post-Christmas, pre-New Year’s cards. In my defense, the holiday season does actually continue until New Year’s Day.

Well, this year I decided to get in gear, and I have actually designed and ordered my Christmas cards with *gasp* 2 entire weeks to spare! I will actually get to mail them to our family and friends, who will actually get to see them before Christmas. Maybe I am starting a new tradition…

So I give you, without further ado, the Borders family Christmas picture 2009…drum roll please. (I forgot to mention one of our other most beloved Christmas traditions – watching National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and reciting the entire thing from memory as we do so.)

I love the peaceful feeling of this photograph, especially since it means that all those who receive our card will believe that this is how my children look every day. If reality were my goal, I would have used the shots in which G has pulled her nightgown over her head while M rolls his eyes so far back in his head that only the whites show while begging me to let him have his pet lizard in the Christmas picture because, after all, he is part of the family too.  However, reality was not the goal. The goal was to have a beautiful photograph of my sweet babies looking to all the world the way I see them in my heart.

Merry Christmas to me.