It always helps to get creative when sending out Christmas cards, and that is exactly what one family decided to do.
Jonathan Stanley has done something unique for the past five years. His family has posed for the annual Christmas card that is themed, the “chaos of parenting.” That is what they send out to family and friends at Christmas.
When the Stanley family had their first child, they tried their best to send out a more traditional picture. Stanley told HuffPost in an email that the pictures were “hilariously bad.”
“The baby cried the whole time, it was windy, the camera kept misfiring, you name it,” he said. “If two of us looked OK, the third one blinked or sneezed or something.”
The results ended up being so funny that the family decided to capitalize on it. Rather than sending out a traditional picture, they sent the outtakes to family and friends and they loved it. After getting some feedback, they decided to do a series of those funny Christmas cards that showed how difficult life was as a parent.
Prior to posing for the card in 2014, they had another addition to the family. The two boys are shown in the holiday picture.
After the first card, the boys were shown even more in the spotlight for their behavior. The kids were playing with power tools and climbing on the roof in the next year’s card but don’t worry, Photoshop was involved.
The kids took the car for a spin on last year’s card.
This past year the family welcomed the daughter and it seems as if she is up to no good with the help of her brothers.
‘Calvin and Hobbes’ has been an inspiration for the Stanley family pictures. He loved the comic strip when he was a child and hopes to pass on that creativity to his own kids.
Stanley has also gone viral this past year online after editing a Godzilla trailer to feature one of his toddlers. Apparently, his kids love seeing the pictures when all is said and done.
It is his hope that parents who see the Christmas cards enjoy them just as much as he does.
“Aside from a good chuckle, I want parents everywhere to know that it’s OK to feel a little overwhelmed at times,” he said. “Nobody has it all together.”