Pocket's 2012 Christmas Card Bloopers With Video

Unlike my sister Foley, a Yorkie in constant state of rebellion, I, Pocket, try to be a good dog and do what my parents want me to do. All I want them to do is to sit in a soft chair with either a lap or enough room for me to snuggle next to them. When they are doing other things I try to stay out of their way so they can be ready to sit sooner, or maybe toss me a ball.

I hate to be the reason for prolonged non sitting but this is exactly the situation I found myself in Sunday.  It was Christmas Card picture taking day.  I hate Christmas Card picture taking day.   Maybe someday we will find someone here in the Village of the Pruned willing to take picture of me sitting on my parents’ laps or squeezed between them in a love seat, but until that day it means that I am going to be sitting next to Foley and they are going to be begging me to do the right thing so the picture can be taken.

I just don’t know what the right thing is!  And when I don’t know what to do, like many great Americans, I lie down and keep my legs together, because studies have shown that no one has ever got in trouble by lying down and keeping their legs together.

Except I did.  Because each time I would lie down with my legs together Mommy and Daddy told me to sit up.  Then they would point their phones at me and look through it at me.  I don’t know why.  Who looks through a phone?  Who are these guys?  Dick Tracey?

We started on our brown loveseat.  I stayed up for a few pictures, but then they put me right next to Foley.  She was staying still with her tongue poking out of her mouth posing perfectly which is only fair, this is her twelfth Christmas card.  For her posing for a card is as natural as Lindsay Lohan  posing for a mug shot photo.

Then we moved to Daddy’s chair and at this point all I wanted to do is lie down.  During the picture taking Daddy kept hitting the video button by mistake and finally he decided to record my humiliation, so here is one minute of a long photo shoot with Mommy and Daddy trying to get me to stand.

Finally we were placed under the tree and they on the floor with us and I continued to lie down but then I got so tired of lying I stood and that is when they got their photo.  Those pictures are being processed and should go out next week.  Until then, if you don’t mind, I am lying down.

Never let the drug dealers print your Christmas Cards

I warned them, and warned them, and warned them but they would not listen to me, and today they paid the price.

Mommy and Daddy drove down the Dirty Boulevard to the hood today to get our Christmas cards from their drug dealer.  To no ones surprise but theirs the drug dealer did not have the cards.  Now I spend my nights sleepless, knowing that my photo, and Pocket's photo, are floating around the ether somewhere until someone finds it, and uses Photoshop to put our perfect faces on freshly shaven dogs.

Daddy sent Mommy into the hood to get the pictures because that's how he rolls.  He sat in the car reading his Entertainment Weekly (sorry gals, he's taken) while Mommy risked life and limb to wish everyone Happy Holidays.  Finally, after digesting a fascinating essay on both of Reese Weatherspoon's deep thoughts, Daddy realized that the sequence of slipping the drug dealer unmarked non-sequential bills and him slipping Mommy an unmarked envelope of adorable Christmas cards had taken too long.  He exited the car, grabbing Mommy's umbrella on a pretense that it had started to rain and she had not taken it with her, but truthfully he planned to go Patrick MacNee on someone's ass, and set off looking for Mommy.

He found her with a ferocious dealer,  her white hair back in a bun. wearing jeans and a vest.  Colors!  The red vest and name tag gave her away as a gang member.  The East Coast chapter of CVS employees is known to be especially viscous.  The first words the gang banger said to Daddy were:  "It's not my fault."  Wow.  Bitches respect the umbrella.  She then explained to my bad ass Dad holding the Natural Playful instrument of death that some of her fellow stoners had printed the pictures but they were missing. 

Well, what to expect from stoners?  Mommy said she was getting a discount, and the three pictures with no writing that she had bought for her children would be redone for free and she would pick them up the next day  Mommy seemed to have the situation in hand but Daddy wanted to make sure he was adequately backing her up.  So he went back to the car and read an Entertainment Weekly profile of TI.

Mommy soon came out, carrying her umbrella, with fresh dents in the handle, and hopefully enough pictures to spread some holiday cheer to our many friends.  Tonight Daddy is going to do the addresses and zip codes  on his label maker fresh from learning how TI had turned this hobby into a business while staying in the Greybar Hotel.

We sincerely hope he cards get to your house by Valentine's Day

Christmas card outtakes

You can spread the word of the birth in the manger, you can promise the babies that Santa is on the way, you can spread merry and bright cheer:  but I know the truth.  This Christmas thing.  It's one giant photo op.

Pocket and I hate the Christmas tree. It's appearance means that we will soon be tortured by our two perfectionist (only when it comes to Yorkie Pictures) parents and posed with flash bulbs blinking at us more than a Kardashian acting like a Slore. 

We made it through seven days without getting our picture taken and we began hoping that Mommy and Daddy had found the perfect Christmas cards in the discount aisle at Hallmark.  But on Sunday my faith in a retail giants ability to overstock during the holiday was unrealized  The camera was brought out.  The posing was about to begin.

Luckily, for Pocket, there were no antlers this year.  The antlers don't matter to me.  Daddy tried to put them on me once.  That's why he is known as Three Knuckles.   

On Sunday morning Daddy, Pocket and I were relaxing, when Mommy came downstairs with the camera.  Here is one of our dog flaws:  It takes us a few moments to add what is going on during a given situation.  The Christmas tree is up, we spend endless hours shooting Christmas card pictures once the tree is up, Mommy has a camera, run!  By the time this was all computed we were in their arms and being carried to the place where, in their twisted logic, we should be placed to create the perfect picture:  the kitchen table (where they eat, where their grandchildren come and spit up on their toys.)

They put a green blanket on the table.  They arranged a vase full of pretty flowers to be near us and two candle holders.  "Should we light the candles?" Daddy asked.   (Did you see the video on You Tube where the idiot put his two Yorkies on the dinner table on a blanket next to two lit candles in front of a Christmas Tree.  Burned down a three mile block.)

No candles were lit.  Thank Dog for Moms.  We were placed on the table.  Now I am used. to the table.  Some mornings, after breakfast, I can coax Daddy into letting me up there.  I sit on a place mat and get nice scratches and rubs while Daddy looks at the computer and Mommy the papers.  Pocket is not allowed,  She'd go like the drunk violinist on the Titanic:  Plop.

So we're up there.  I'm cool. I know if we just sit still and look at the camera it won't last for long.  But Pocket has never been on the table before, knows she shouldn't be on the table, and can't stop shaking.  Plus Mommy and Daddy are nervous about us falling which makes them jump whenever we move, which makes us jump, and around and around we go.

This is one of our discarded table photos

Mommy sat in her chair and looked at all the pictures but decided that none of them were satisfactory.  Daddy said we could pose on the first landing on the steps:  The exact picture we didn't use last year.  Why he is not Presidents I do not know.  They began to arrange decorations on the steps.  Pocket trembled but I assured her we would be back snuggled up as soon as this exercise in futility reached it's conclusion.

One of the props was a reindeer.  We took some totally unusable photos with it last year, but the reindeer had been working out, so we had big hopes for him.  They also put up their tiny Christmas tree and they thought it was just the perfect picture.  Then they added us.

That's when things fell apart.  Pocket had learned that just before the picture was clicked the flash would go off, so that beautiful look on her face was instantly turned to looking like the junior senator from Kentucky during the State of the Union Address.

Finally we grew tired of this reindeer and his antics and we went Sarah Palin on his ass.  His is us in our position of triumph.

This is it the card we are sending to Mrs.Palin to show her that she is not the only one who can kill caribou in the wilderness.

By the end of the night we were exhausted.  We were lying on the warm afghan a friend of Daddy's made for him.  We were snuggled up close together. 

Daddy saw us lying there, the Christmas pillow behind us, the tiny tree lit up behind the couch, and he reached for the camera.  "This could be the perfect shot," he said.  He clicked, and clicked, and clicked.  57 shots later Mommy and Daddy determined that they may have found one acceptable picture. 

They took it to their drug dealer today.  I don't know why they get Christmas Cards done at the pharmacy.  They said they were going to the place where they get their drugs to make the pictures.  When I googled the term drug dealer I found some very disturbing things.

I tried to talk them out of it, but they were quite persistent that there was no danger despite non-arguable nationwide crime stats.   They picked out the card, scanned the picture, are picking them up on Monday, Daddy is doing the labels, and hopefully they will be in the mail mid week.   For those on our list, you should have them by the end of the week, except for Luca and Junior.  We pray it gets to you by Christmas.

After that we will make it our profile picture so everyone can see it and tell me Daddy what a bad photographer he is.  Of course this can't be true.  How could you have a bad picture of the two of us?  Unless the drug dealers don't do the cards properly.

Holidays.  So much pressure and such a bother.  I hope you enjoy them. Now Pocket and I are going to eat some reindeer.

The official Foley Monster and Pocket Christmas Picutre

It is time for the unveiling of the Foley Monster and Pocket official Christmas picture. OK everyone settle down. I know, it’s like the lighting of the Rockerfeller Center Christmas Tree or the erecting of the National Festivus Pole, but let me give you a little background first.

At this point of our posing we had been photographed about 600 times. You cannot tell, because it did not appear in the picture, but there were tiny puffs of steam coming out my ears. I was tired and wanted a lap. When I am in the thralls of lap withdrawal I am six pounds of ferocious hell, my friends.

As for Pocket, never has a dog looked so resigned, so forlorn. She had tried it all, looking left, looking right, pouting, bringing sexy back; nothing pleased our camera obsessed parents. She laid her head on the blanket. The expression on her face was simple defeat.

The antlers had been strapped to her head for more than an hour. They could have attached a ball gag and the humiliation needle wouldn’t have quivered. Even I felt sorry for the poor girl. At the point of the picture’s creation she wouldn’t have aarfed a bark if they hung her by her back legs and shaved her like a hog in the butcher house.

We were lying down in front of the little village under the tree. I don’t know who would build a village under a tree. They must spend all year cleaning giant pinecones. Plus Pocket defiles the river nightly.

Daddy had the camera now. He was lying on the floor, slowly creeping towards us. Somehow the camera and I became on the same wavelength. I knew when it was frozen, not ready to take the picture, and Pocket and I posed perfectly; then, it would signal to me when it was ready. We’d turn away just as the shutter clicked. Daddy would look at the picture, and then the parade of bad words would begin.

But even that had lost it’s fun for us. Now we just wanted them to take the danm picture so we could get on with our lives. But picture after picture he couldn’t get the shot right (which was pathetic, considering the perfect subjects he had.) Finally, as Pocket settled into her manic depression and I grumbled the mumbles of dread, the flash flushed, and Daddy caught a pretty darn good pictures of us sisters from Yorkshire.

Mommy looked at it, smiled, and said “we can do better.”

So we sat for about another 100 pictures over the course of the weekend. But we need did to that one.

Which is this one:




So Merry Christmas to all our Tanner Brigade, Facebook, Twitter and Blogger friends. You make every day better and we treasure you all.