This photograph was taken on Christmas Day (see the snow in the background?) after I realized that afternoon would be the only opportunity of the winter break to capture images of all our family together. Steve, my husband, duly set up the tripod and timer. Our kids (Luke, Maxwell, and Ali, ages 21, 19, and 17) grumbled, but complied.

"Let's get one of the cats in!", I exclaimed, brightly. In my first campaign, we used a nice image of the five of us on a couch, cute cat sitting calmly on my lap. We have three of them, litter-mates rescued by the Humane Society and adopted as kittens. And I heard from fellow cat-lovers that they liked the photograph. How hard could it be, to find one cooperative cat?

Well, maybe the snow freaked them out. Suffice to say, no family-photo-with-cat in this year's mailers.