photos

When we moved to South Carolina 6 years ago, I took our first Christmas card picture on the beach. I dressed Ceily, Eddie and Lana in matching red shirts and cute winter hats. After that, I usually took Christmas card pictures right before church, when they were dressed in their Christmas church outfits. But, I always had a picture in my mind of them walking on the beach, hand in hand, with Santa. My dad has his very own Santa suit, and I knew I could borrow it. (That proved to be almost disastrous come Christmas eve!)

This is maybe the last year we are in South Carolina and I knew I needed to finally take that beach picture. My ideal picture would have been in August, after a summer playing in the sand and surf, the children all sun kissed, with cute sun dresses for the girls and bare feet for all. That never happened and come November, when we were home for Thanksgiving, I finally borrowed the Santa suit.

December came and I decided it was time to get the picture taken. We had to be at a dinner party later that evening, so we planned on heading to the beach right before. I was all warm in my uggs and sweater, and I actually thought it was pretty comfortable on the beach in December at dusk. All participating posers were in bare feet. And they let me know how cold and uncomfortable they were. We were able to get some pretty good pictures, though. A stranger passing by made me stand with my family to take a picture as well.
Thanks to Chris, our Santa. He was the coldest, or so he says. His brother mentioned that he must really love me to don a Santa suit on the beach for all to see.

He does.

This was the picture we chose for our 2008 picture. I'm happy we have the beach in the background and Santa beside us. Many recipients had to look long and hard to realize it was actually Chris under the beard. Strange how we would send a family Christmas card without Chris, huh? Thanks Chris.



This was the back of our card.



Other pictures.