The holiday cards with people wearing coordinated colors or holiday sweaters and outfits! Every year I have the same conversation with Cristiano:Cristiano: Explain to me how it works again. People wake up in the morning and they all decide to put on similar colors or holiday sweaters and go get pictures taken?
Me: It's really not that complicated. They are holiday cards. You know, people wearing red and green or sweaters with snowmen and reindeer on them. This is not the invasion of Normandy. It's about family members or groups of like-minded people going to the local Sears to get holiday photos taken...
Cristiano: And who decides to do it? Like one person and that person calls the other people and they decide on the phone what sweater to wear? Or someone says "You wear red and I'll wear green?" Or it's just a coincidence and they meet at Sears and they all happen to be wearing Christmas stuff?
Me: I never really thought about it that much. It's just something we do...
Cristiano: Wow, I can't imagine Italians doing something like that. Who would coordinate the whole thing? And Italian kids wouldn't sit still and be able to smile like that...
Postscript: Lest anyone thought this was a slam on holiday cards, I implore you to not take us off your mailing list! We love 'em and hang them on the fridge. They get me through the holidays when I have to spend them here. This was meant to make fun of Cristiano's not understanding the logistics of how the holiday card comes to being.
6 comments:
Hahah! Luckily my family wasn't into the coordinated photos but I remember one time we all wore red and white sweatshirts that my stepmother made us wear...she's no longer in the family :)
Happy holidays...when I get back the week of the 2nd, let's get together!
My immediate family never did it but there is one of those Sears portraits of my brother and I from 1976 where we are wearing red, white and blue starred overalls that my great-grandmother made us for the Bicentenial! We also both have Dorothy Hamill bowl haircuts and look like two little girls. Not to date myself but...
I will agree with Cristiano that there's no way Italians could pull off the matching sweater Sears photo...too much organization and planning ahead involved ;) Ah, I feel better now having expressed my Italian stereotype of the day--thanks for the outlet!
I think for Cristiano it's less a slam on Italians (or Americans, for that matter) and more a nerdy engineer observation of his. Though he is fascinated that the American kids are so well-behaved. Italian kids don't sit still in places where sitting is part of the situation. The other night in a Chinese restaurant there were a band of kids running wild terrorizing the waiters. And a group of them were trying to dislodge a large aquarium off its base. Italian kids do not get "time outs" - and look at the result. Hee hee
THIS CRACKED ME UP! It's kind of a cheese fest, the sears photos, but all my girlfriends do them with their kids and I can't help but keep around ...it's just when they hit the photo shoot year round and send you piles of them...THEN I would have to say it's kind of out of control...what will you do for your family holiday cards, next year with baby??
Hi Michellanea!
I stumbled across your blog on 'The Shock of Old's blog roll and decided to start reading it. I like it, and just wanted to say this post was hilarious... Never put that much thought into taking pictures.
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