Guy?

Merry Christmas!

Traditionally, at this time of year we all gather around the tree or the couch and try to fit in the frame. We always want a decent family photo to send to people, or to keep a record of how we all look, or to feel like we actually accomplished something pretty during the stress thats always involved.

And we normally succeed. We take something that we all look forced into and where we all shine with very unnatural grins, but we look nice enough and we are able to convince people that we are a relaxed christmasy family.
Last year, we failed miserably.

Mum got a free coupon from a dingy place in the corner of a supermarket. We've never been ones to pass up anything free, the vaccuum cleaning incident is a very exciting example, so six of us traipsed down in our finest garments, looking a little too fashionable and made up.

The photographer lady was young and rushed. We waited for ages first, then were shown into a walk in closet. She made the background a neutral grey colour, and told Mum to sit on Dad's lap on a questionable shaky seat. She then shoved us around and behind them, making us in to a neat little group of people. "Biiiig smiles!" She said, realizing we looked less then glamorously toothy. We grinned our brightest back!
She squinted at us from behind the lens, and frowned. We were not close enough. She shoved us closer together. Our smiles were a little shaky. Were we not pleasing enough?
She then ran back to her station, and frowned again. She came back and forcibly squished us all into an uncomfortable small area. It was stuffy. We were so tightly packed that I expected to look down and see that everyone was standing on my feet.

She yelled again. "Sayy cheese!"
Our smiled had drooped. We clenched teeth into fake ones. "Cheese."

Then we were happy again! It was over for another year. We thought it was a job well done. We obviously did the most work. They should have paid us for enduring that. Plus, they'd get a really nice photo out of the bargain.

We received it about two weeks later. They made us go and pick it up. One look at the top corner and i knew we'd made a horrible mistake. A red face grinned back at me. It wasn't a mistake, it was my own face. She'd zoomed very much in, so whatever we were wearing didn't matter one bit.We all looked like lobsters. Very squished, slimey lobsters with massive disturbing grins.
This year, we're going with the option of being that disturbing looking on our own camera.