Many people have made comments about the Christmas cards that we sent out this year. Inquiring minds want to know. How did we get Tito inside a stocking? How did we get him to stay inside a stocking? And did we really place said stocking and said Chihuahua and hang them on the wall?
It was a Saturday in October, and Liz and I decided to run to Target to get some Halloween candy. I mean, in case we had trick-or-treaters. Or in case I wanted to shove eight Fun Size Snickers bars in my mouth. Target had already begun converting the last two seasonal aisles to Christmas items, and that’s where we found our Bears stocking. Liz had the idea to put Tito inside the stocking for the photo, and $18 dollars later (I wish I was kidding), we had our Christmas Card idea. Now, it was time for the photo shoot.
Tito is a total diva, but a diva that does not make love to the camera. Often times, we’ll catch him doing the funniest things and then unsuccessfully try to re-create them for pictures. He always looks away from the camera just in time to thwart our efforts at picture-whoring him out. So in the stocking idea, we had the best of both worlds—a great concept, and one that would be more difficult for him to ruin because he could barely move.
Now, I don’t want to paint a painful picture and have PETA shoving animal love down our throats, but it probably wasn’t one of Tito’s favorite moments ever to be placed inside a stocking. I’ll go on record of saying that he really hated it. But, he also hates baths and nail trimmings; a couple of other things that he just doesn’t realize are for his own good.
So yes, he really was in the stocking. And we made sure he was far enough down that all of his legs were inside and that he couldn’t climb out. Then, we really did hang it on a nail in the wall. Now what you can’t see is that Liz is within arm’s reach of him in case he started moving and trying to escape, she could force him back down inside try to calm him down and ensure that the stocking didn’t fall. We got the perfect shot, and all of the pieces were in place for the ’07 Christmas card.
Do you want to hear what makes this story even better? I was thinking “What could I do with this Chicago Bears stocking?” Ah, of course, my cheapness won out. We lint rolled the stocking and returned it to Target.
$18 richer and spreading holiday cheer. From our family to yours, Merry Christmas.
I love that you returned the stocking. You guys are the greatest.
Left by Jody on December 26th, 2007