Oh the drama that is Christmas Cards!

Last year I discovered a love for picture Christmas cards! Why? Because I don't have to write anything, I can just shove them in an envelope and address them and off they go! It suddenly became a no-brainer for me. (I know, I'm so lazy). So I was pretty excited to randomly take a picture I thought would be perfect for this years Christmas card. We happened to take the pic while we were en route to Grand Junction for Black Friday shopping and my sister in law Karen suggested pulling over and taking a pic of me and Greg since the back ground was just so pretty. Greg and my brother were following behind us so they didn't know what our plan was when we pulled over. Which is a good thing, otherwise Greg would have said to just keep going! So we took several pics and this is the one that I used on our Christmas cards.



I do wish that Greg would have been wearing his jacket too since I'm all bundled up and he's not, but what can I do? Well, that was mild in comparison to what happened next. Off to Wal-Mart I went to download our pics and find the "perfect" Christmas background. Then I wrote a cute little message in red writing. Everything looked great on the computer. Hmmm....well, something happened from the computer to the printers. When my cards finally arrived I was so excited I just glanced at them in the store but didn't really pay attention to them.

The next day I settled down to start enveloping them when I noticed that my message in the red writing was barley visible. And I'm not being a drama queen. I'm serious. So much for my not having to write anything plan. My cards sat on our table for a week while I tried to come up with a way to solve the problem. I finally broke down and wrote "Can you find our hidden message" on the back of each stinkin' card. I wasn't too happy about it but I figured what was a gal to do? And just FYI, my husband thinks to this day that I'm on drugs or something because he can't see the "hidden message" at all!

So on Tuesday I went to my friend Christina's house to watch a movie and our card was laying on her coffee table. She told me it drove her crazy trying to find our message but that her husband finally figured it out. (And then afterwards he wasn't very impressed. Like I said, I didn't do this on purpose!) So I thought, "Cool, people will figure it out!"

Then, last night, I get an email from a cousin with "Hidden Message" in the subject line. I thought, OK, either she found it, or she didn't and it's driving her crazy! So I open it, and all it says is, "when is the baby due?" Oh. My. God. Here is what quickly went through my head: "Am I really that fat?", "Is it because of my coat?", "Am I really that fat?", "What is EVERYONE ELSE going to think?", "Am I really that fat?"

I convinced myself that it was just the phrase "hidden message" and the fact that I was wearing a coat and Greg wasn't as to why she would think this. But of course I quickly got online and IM'd my sister (who as I suspected was online) to see if she got my card yet. And of course, thanks to the mysteries that surround the US Postal Service, she for some reason had not received hers yet, although my cousin lives further away. So unfortunately she wasn't able to voice her opinion as to if I looked pregnant. (Of course she did write, "have you really put on that much weight?" *sigh*)

So I fell asleep last night with visions of all the "Congratulations" emails I'd be receiving today. And of course when I told Greg the story this morning he said, "Well, that means my family is probably going to think the same thing. You know how bad my dad wants a grand child."

I was so thankful this morning when two of my aunts emailed to tell me that they found my hidden message! And I have yet to have anyone ask me today when the baby is due. But had I known that this little "hidden message" business would have drawn people to the conclusion that I was with child I would have just broke down and actually wrote on "real" Christmas cards. So there you have it! I'm officially not pregnant! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!

p.s. I'm so not mad at my cousin. Because I can at least appreciate the great blog material she gave me! ;)