Behind the scenes: What didn't make the holiday card this year

A good portion of my December was spent in one of my three pastures trying to get the perfect holiday photo of each of my critters.  Looking back, I realize now that "perfect" is a relative term.  It's also an incredibly elusive achievement.  In my head, I can picture precisely what I want, but to actually obtain it?  As near as I can tell, I would have been more effective teaching them all to dance. 

Below are a few of the photos from this month that did not make it onto this year's holiday card.  They did, however, make me laugh and I thought they might you, too.
And can I just say that I am very relieved that this particular exercise is now complete for the next eleven months? :-)

Beau (left) really had a ball wearing his various hats, while Chester was pretty much p.o.'d the entire time:

Chester acted out at every opportunity.  Take the next photo, for example.  This did not go well:

Kai most certainly did not want to go for a walk with Chester the elf:

Have you ever tried to get two donkeys and a llama in holiday attire to stand close enough together (and have pleasant looks on their faces) to get a picture?   This is the one and only non-blurry shot I got of the three of them together with holiday garb.  Nobody was happy about it:

For the goat boys, though, it was business as usual:

They didn't care what they had on their heads as long as posturing and head-butting could continue as normal:

The head-butting, however, made hat placement very challenging:

And Pete just couldn't keep his mouth to himself:

And because of this, if you look closely below, you will see something quite rare.  My farm pup, Roxy, is revving up for a really good snarl at Pete.  In her defense, though, he was invading her personal space.  A girl's gotta draw the line somewhere:

George, meanwhile, was completely enthralled with Honey, the elf-chicken:

 He kept edging closer and closer until I was laughing so hard I couldn't even focus the camera anymore:Back in the donkey pasture, Beau continued to proudly display his holiday ear warmers:

...while Chester spent a lot of time pouting:

Being his buddy, Beau tried hard to cajole Chester out of his mood:

But about the time Chet flung the elf hat from his head and threatened to stomp it to death...:

Beau realized it was time to give up and kindly returned to me the hat that Chester refused to wear:

Chester may not be talking to me anymore, but Beau has informed me that he would like every day to be hat day:

How in the world do I say "no" to this face?

Merry Christmas from all of us on Critter Farm:

♥