Everyone knows that Santa has lots of helpers. This year he has one more to lend a hand. Perhaps you don’t think of Labrador’s as being part of the crew at the North Pole, but we do.

We all had agreed that this year’s card had to feature Mocha, our nine-year-old Chocolate Lab. Partly because the kids don’t really like to be in the picture anymore–they’re not really kids anymore either. People have also told us they liked our earlier cards that had her in them. Probably the biggest reason was that she was not feeling well, and we were worried about her.

She had been very picky about eating her food, then she would hardly eat at all. A few trips to the Vet and an ultrasound revealed that she was very sick. Somehow she had developed sorosis of the liver. By early November when she was diagnosed it was already too far gone. We had her on medication and special food, and it seemed to be helping. When I put the card together over Thanksgiving weekend we were confident she’d be around for a few months. A little over a week later she took a turn for the worse. On December 1st she died, here at home, surrounded by people that loved her. Even Patrick was able to talk with her and see her by a video chat session from college. 

As for the card production itself, this year was very similar to last. Only 5 separate images were used. Becky took the picture of Mocha this fall while in Connecticut. Photoshop Elements was used on an iMac G5 running the new Leopard operating system (OS X 10.5). The cards were printed through iPhoto and Apple–although Kodak is actually the company doing the printing & production work behind the scene.