What does reaching an age of reason have to do with taking photos of your kids for photo Christmas cards? Well, when your children are very young, you can jolly them and then maybe bribe them to sit still and smile. Once they are old enough to understand and believe your threats, you can blackmail them into looking their best.

Keep in mind that you have to first lay your groundwork by building up your “rep” as an adult who does not make idle threats. So, do not bandy about parental threatening phrases unless you are committed to carrying through.

You also have to give some thought to your threats so you can craft them to suit the specific child. For example, somewhere during the “tween” and teen years, many youngsters go through a sullen phase. Getting this child to show up for the family holiday photo is near to impossible and getting them to smile is usually too much to hope for.

A good threat for your daughter may be, “If we can’t get a decent, smiling photo of you, I’m going to use that baby picture of you in the saggy diaper!” Be aware, however, that this threat may leave your male child totally unmoved. For that child, you may need to threaten to personally and thoroughly clean out his bedroom and throw out all of his much-loved “junk.”

Have a bit of faith in your parental wiliness and hang on to your patience until that wonderful age when they stride off to college, confident that they already know more than their parents. They will become condescendingly sweet to the old folks for a while and you can snag some fabulous digital photo cards to one day show your grandchildren, with whom you will snicker over their parents’ weird hair styles, poses, and clothing choices!

Wow! The Digital Age is here, and now you can take photos, download them, and create digital photo Christmas cards within minutes. I could never have imagined that type of technology would advance so quickly. Not to age myself but I remember loading the camera with film, and waiting to finish the roll (regretting buying a roll with so many pictures on it). It took months to be able to finish one roll and then take it to the store to be developed. Then there was the waiting while the store sent your film out to be developed in a lab before it was ready for you to pick up.

Digital photography is great…I get to see my grandchildren the same day the photo is taken! Last night my grandson hit his head and got a goose bump. My daughter took a digital photo and emailed it to me so “doctor” grandma could decide what to do. Happily he was fine, and this process only took minutes. My daughter loves all of her digital gadgets. When I visit her I watch her take digital photos, plug her camera into the computer and voila…instant family photos. Family photos are great, but I find myself appreciating them several years after the original photos were taken. Years later you remember how you hated the way you looked…and now you wish you could look that good again.

One of my sisters works for a photographer (and of course that makes her an expert!). During the holidays she tries to color coordinate us for the annual family photo, which often gets used in our photo Christmas cards. I have a large family – nine brothers and sisters – and to get us all to look like the model family is near impossible. She will position us so that we match the person standing next to us. If she only knew now much we dread this, but no one has the heart (or the guts) to tell her that we would all rather just eat. But all in all, she was right and it is worth the effort to do it the “right way” for lasting memories.

I’ve recently seen photo Christmas cards that are formatted to display three separate photos. These are great for showing individual pictures of all three kids in one family or one talented youngster who plays three different sports or has many activities throughout the year. They could also be used for two individual pictures and one group shot – one of the new baby, one of big sister, and the third of the whole family.

With the ease of digital photography, some lucky families can show the many beautiful faces of their beloved pet in various poses or adorable shots of their pets interacting with each other. Candid shots of kittens and puppies are fun to see and pictures of children with their pets are always delightful.

The multi-picture format could be used to share several scenes of this year’s vacation or a memorable trip to the beach or the zoo. One photo Christmas card could show photos of the same scene taken during three seasons of the year or sequential shots of how the family built that incredible snowman. I’m sure your version of before-during-after of your first attempt at snowboarding would be totally appreciated by your friends and family.

Christmas cards are a thoughtful way to keep in touch with people you care about. Sharing pictures brings you all closer and keeps you involved in each other’s lives. This year, try sending your own photo Christmas cards and you might start a very enjoyable tradition.

Has anyone else gone through the experience of a family wedding?

When my son Sean starting dating Kim, I thought to myself, “She seems like a nice girl.” But with my son’s dating history, I really didn’t think the relationship would last. But last it did! I think my first clue was when Sean wanted Kim to be included in the family holiday photo cards. Then we had to take digital pictures of them on Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, etc. You get the idea.

Finally, after a year of dating, Sean popped the question on a horse and buggy ride through Central Park. This experience, along with all of the holiday photos, have been captured in digital photos that will last a lifetime. The photo collection is sure to continue growing as time goes on.

Now we are in the process of hiring a wedding photographer and I can’t believe how much photography has evolved since my wedding. Not only have the wedding photographers gone totally digital, but now the whole process isn’t complete without a videographer capturing everything on a DVD.

I know it sounds like we’re flash happy, but years from now we’ll look at all of the family photos fondly, enjoying memories of when we were all a little younger and slimmer.

For the past couple of years, my wife Susan has really been into the studying and tracing of her family history. Genealogical research is a complex process that involves more than affixing a collection of names on a pedigree chart. Genealogy involves identifying ancestral or descendant families by using historical records to establish biological, genetic, or familial kinship. Oftentimes, Susan spends entire afternoons and evenings on the computer doing her research.

One of the ways I have been able to help her is by going through old family photos and Christmas photo cards that she has collected over the years and scanning them into the computer. Some of the old photos are perfectly clear and don’t need any digital restoration at all. However, quite a few of the antique photos have lost a little bit of their sharpness or need to have marks or obvious cracks removed.

This is where programs such as Microsoft Picture It (which is installed for free on some computers) or Adobe Photoshop come in handy. Not only can old photos be cleaned up, but other editing features can also improve these older photos. The old photos can be resized or cropped, the brightness and contrast changed, or in the case of color photos, the color balance restored and red-eye removed. Once these procedures are used, new, digital files of the photos can not only be saved onto a hard drive or disc (CD or DVD), but the photos can be printed out, framed, and hung on a wall for all to see. It’s priceless to now have the ability to create digital photos of old family photos taken before this technology was in place.

For Susan, digitally restoring and preserving these family photos of long-gone relatives has brought her many hours of joy and happy tears.

Every family has one – a mother, cousin, grandparent or aunt who obsessively shoves the camera in everyone’s face at family functions.  This special family photographer is always around for opportunities for family photos, no matter how unflattering they may be. You can run, but you can never hide from the unforgiving lens.

As a child, my grandmother was the biggest offender, taking pictures of me “eating” chocolate cake, watching television, or running around in a diaper. Then, of course, I hated the thought of being photographed at such inopportune moments.  Now, as I look at the albums upon albums of all those fleeting moments, I have to say that I am sort of glad that my grandmother was as aggressive as the Hollywood paparazzi when I was young.

My family went to a backyard barbecue at my aunt’s house never expecting that we would walk away with one of the best family photos we had ever taken together.  The four of us were sitting around with our burgers when grandma came around with the camera.  She snapped a perfect shot…my sister had a mouthful of burger, my mother was mid-conversation with my father who was obviously not listening, and I happened to see the camera and winked.  A perfect candid photo! When grandma emailed it to us (yes, she does that, too), we all got a good laugh out of it and decided to share it with everyone else.  We used this ridiculous picture in our Christmas photo cards. I have to say, we got a lot of positive feedback from the recipients of the card…some loved it, some thought it was a mistake and others thought it was posed.  But I had to hand it to my grandma… her persistent camera-clicking was a big hit this year!

I love taking photos for my photo holiday cards, but the problem is getting the photos developed! I’m not quite up to speed with digital cameras, so I haven’t yet taken advantage of the instant gratification that digital photos can give you. Recently I took four disposable cameras that had been sitting on my dresser for several years to be developed, not really knowing what was on them. Were they vacation photos? Holiday photos? Photos of my cats? Who knows! I did not take the disposable cameras all at once though, as that would not be like me. I took one at a time and each time I picked up the one set of pictures, I would drop off another one to be developed. It turns out that any normal person probably would have been anxious to get at least one set of photos back quickly; they were my son’s wedding photos from September of 2006!

Actually, after getting the photos developed, I was very happy I did. Two rolls were from Christmas 2006 and 2007 at my son’s new home, with both sides of the new families in attendance. My daughter-in-law was very nervous having everyone over for the first time in their new marriage. The get-together was such a great success that we decided to do it again in 2007. I had promised to send her duplicate photos of both holidays, which I eventually did. I was better off not sending them to her at all though because she had forgotten my promise. When I finally sent her the belated Christmas photos, I got in trouble with her for not sending them sooner (not as much trouble as I got into for forgetting their first anniversary, but that is another story)!

The fourth roll contained photos of a fostered cat that I had to give up to an animal hospice due to serious illnesses. She died soon after I left her there. I was so happy when I realized I had those pictures of my lost friend Callie. I will never forget her and the photos are a special reminder of her.

Have I learned my lesson about developing photos belatedly? Yes, I treasure them even more once I get them developed, no matter how late, because they are fond memories of the past that were not quite vividly remembered until the photos were viewed. And when I go to my friend’s son’s pre-school graduation this May, I probably won’t get those photos developed until he goes to high school so she and I can have a good cry over how cute he was back then!

Wow! Without even trying, this year I’ve got one of the most excellent family photos for my photo Christmas cards! It started with a Grandparent’s Day gift: tickets for the whole family to go together to the circus – grandparents, parents and children. Getting there included the usual merry-go-round of logistics planning, and teasing about one another’s directional foibles and timing mishaps. We arrived in a little swarm of laughter, with every one of us feeling like a young child on holiday. We started enthusiastically taking pictures of each other: sitting in a row, biting into big puffs of pink cotton candy, digging fists into the popcorn cartons.

Best of all, while we were taking pictures one of my enterprising children enticed a clown to pose with our entire group, while snagging a passerby to take digital photos. The resulting family photos are a treasure of frozen merriment! As soon as I saw the digital photos, I knew we just had to send that particular photo far and near as this year’s photo Christmas cards.  I’m often writing notes in my holiday cards, to distant relatives and old friends, to update them on the growth and well-being of my children and grandchildren.  This year, I’ll let my family photo Christmas cards say it all for me!

I love receiving photo cards of my friends and family. Really, I do. I love that more and more people are sending photo cards as the way they say Happy Holidays or as invitations and other imaginative uses. Really, I do. It’s great to see photo Christmas cards of the little ones and how they grow so much from year to year. Often times, with friends and family that you aren’t as close with, it’s the one chance you have to actually see them. Photo cards of babies are especially cute to see when they are first announced to the world or used as party invites. It’s even become standard practice to send photo thank you cards for weddings and other occasions in which gifts are given.

But as with most things, there is a line that can be crossed and my friends and family seem to be oblivious of the line, let alone the fact that they have crossed it, leaped over it, in fact! I know pets are like children to some but do I really need to see a photo card of your pet snake “Rattles” wishing me a Merry Christmas? Or a photo card with a picture of your house? Not the house you just purchased (which would make more sense) but the house that you have lived in for 20 years and I have been to 1,000 times! And if you are going to do that, at least clean up the toys on your front lawn and maybe take some time for a little power-washing on your siding to make it look a little more put together when you’re taking pictures for your photo greeting cards

Oh and please, take a good long look at your photo before you decide to send it out as photo greeting cards to hundreds of people. In fact, have someone else look at the photo card just to make sure. Some of you may recall the Seinfeld episode with the photo card Elaine sent out? I have received photo cards of children with fireplaces in the backdrop that made it look as if the child was on fire. And how about photo cards with so many people in the shot that I can’t even tell who they are. This photo was actually posted up on my fridge for a few days before I realized that the photo card was sent to us in error and we actually didn’t know anyone in the photo! One birth announcement that I received had such a strange cut-out of the baby’s photo that it appeared as if the baby was suspended in air. This may not sound that strange but it was really eerie!

In closing, don’t stop sending me your photo greeting cards, just pay attention to “the line” and try to stay on the safe side. Check back for my next installment when I talk about crossing the line with your “informative” Christmas newsletters…

So here’s my problem: if taking pictures is getting easier and easier, how come getting the right shot for my photo Christmas cards is such a trial and tribulation? If you’re saying, “Don’t I know it,” then you are probably also aware of how the challenges when taking pictures convolute over the passage of time. The scheduling alone could make you give up on taking photos. Who is available? When? Who first needs a haircut he doesn’t want and who just got a haircut she hates? If one of your teens begs, “Wait ‘til I lose another five pounds,” the other whines, “If we don’t do it now while my face is clear, I don’t want to do it at all!”

You know how it goes when taking family photos – when they are small children, the biggest challenge when taking pictures is patience, both yours and theirs. Getting more than one child at a time to face the camera and smile, without moving and without having a finger stuck in mouth or ear or nose (not necessarily their own), is enough of a miracle. Having them all come out in the photos looking like the adorable angels you know they are, rather than like the little trolls one facial twist can produce, is quite another miracle.

But then they mature and you plan your ideal photo greeting cards – a lovely fireside tableau during your collegian’s Thanksgiving homecoming. And so, just in time for your photo op, your high school teen has a freshly broken arm set in an awkward position and your littlest angel has puffy red eyes and drippy red nose. Guess what? Even if you, eventually some year, do manage to produce a photo greeting card showing “family perfection,” that’s not the family photo you will love best. Oh no, your favorite photo cards will be the ones showing sniffles and clunky casts, bad hair cuts and mischievous, gap-toothed facial expressions. Those are the real keepers!