The Cat is Out of the Picture

The biggest unexpected holiday stressor is the Christmas card.  It seems so simple: take picture, order cards, address cards, add stamps, and mail.  But somehow sending out a simple card to every single person you've ever known ends up being a big production. 

The picture-taking is, of course, the hardest part.  Being native Californians who send most of our cards to other native Californians, we always hope to take a festive holiday picture out in the snow.  In four years of living here, that has never happened.  In lieu of the "white Christmas" backdrop, we do some other standard like a photo in front of the Christmas tree or the stockings. 

So, that means we have to set up the holiday decorations before we take the picture.  And you can't set up holiday decorations without cleaning the house first.  So we clean, and we decorate.  We wait until The Boy is clean and well-rested, and the lighting is perfect. 

Last year was our first Christmas with a baby.  My husband and I decided to include ourselves in the Christmas card picture, because one teeny-tiny baby in a photo looked a little bit lonely.  Well, the more people you include in a picture, the more complicated it becomes to get a perfect shot of everybody.  Husband said he needed to get a haircut before posing for a picture, so that delayed the photo-taking process several days.  I had to make sure all our matching, festive holiday outfits were clean.  And when I finally cajoled my husband into taking a picture, I had technical difficulties with the camera timer, and everybody was much more frustrated than our beautiful picture smiles indicated. 

This year I decided my husband and I were out of the picture.  Quite frankly, I'm just feeling too fat to pose for a picture that I'm going to send out to high school and college friends. And it's just too frustrating to include the adults anyway. 

I'm not going to read too much into our removal from the picture.  Let's face it, people are more interested in a picture of my child anyway. But what I really feel bad about is that this was the year that we took the cat out of the Christmas card. 

Leia is just about the best cat ever.  She's 18 pounds of pure kitty love.  I got her just before I got married, and she made the trek out to Chicago with us in the car when we moved here.  And like most newlyweds who haven't had kids yet, my husband and I obsessed over our cat.  In our pre-kid holiday cards, Leia's name, picture, and annual update were include in the card. 

Last year, Leia was relegated to a tiny side picture in one of those multi-picture holiday card layouts you can order.  We still had her name printed on the card. 

This year, my original plan was to have a picture of Leia and a picture of our son.  I took the adorable picture you see above, which kind of looks like she's singing Christmas carols.  (Also, could you pause and be simultaneously impressed and horrified that I got a cat into that outfit?  Clearly that outfit was also purchased in our pre-kid, cat-obsessing days.)  I took another picture of my son, and found a cute layout to pair the two photos together, featuring a side tab with my son's favorite licensed character, Winnie the Pooh.  The layout had two equally-sized photo slots, which I kind of didn't like.  Was that saying that we valued our pet equally to our child? 

So I took Leia's photo out and opted for a single-photo layout with just the picture of our son.  And without a photo of Leia, I figured I couldn't include her name in the signature, because some people might not have any idea who she was.  And I certainly didn't want people thinking I had another baby and named her after a Star Wars character.  So, Leia was out of the card completely. 

I know it's really dumb to add Pet Owner's Guilt to my list of various other types of guilt, but I feel kind of bad for Leia.  Unlike human older siblings who still get plenty of love after a new baby is born, pets are actually forced to take a backseat once a new child is added to the family.  So it isn't really the Christmas card I feel guilty about, because no cat knows or cares about that.  It's more that I feel bad about what the card represents, like the cat is sort of out of the family. 

And I'm reminded of the fact that Leia has kind of gone from prized feline to kind of an annoyance.  Of course I love her and give her more attention than the average cat probably gets.  But when the kid is destroying stuff and everybody needs dinner, the cat meowing for more kibble is kind of the last straw.  And I never side with her in a kid versus cat confrontation, no matter inhumanely she's being treated. 

So, Leia, I love you.  But I'm sorry to say it, you're just a cat now. 

Original Chicago Moms Blog post.  Shannon also blogs at Chicago Mom Views and Boringtown's Closed.