Let me tell you how my family and I came up with a clever way to use photo Christmas cards from the past and present. I come from a large family that loves taking pictures of any celebration or milestone…every chance we get. And when the little ones of the family see a camera aimed towards them, it’s comical how they strike a pose as if they’re at a real fashion photo shoot. It’s just hilarious, but they do take having their pictures taken very seriously.

I have an abundance of nieces, nephews, cousins, Godchildren, extended family members, and friends, and many years ago I started a photo album that holds a collection of personalized Christmas cards of them all from past Christmases. In fact, the first photo Christmas card was started by me when the nieces and nephews were about five or six years old, and I took them to have their first Christmas photo card made as holiday gifts for their grandparents and their own parents. This started a tradition in my family to have the photo Christmas card taken and sent to me to add to my collection of personalized Christmas cards of not just nieces and nephews, but the cousins’ children and children of family friends as well.

During the Christmas holidays I display the latest Christmas photo cards on my fireplace mantle, and I have the Christmas photo cards album to share with everyone as we laugh and reflect on the memories of Christmases past and present. Looking at the pictures from the past, when everyone wore the matching Christmas sweaters, to the present days elaborate winter wonderland scenes with the kids “bling-ed” out. The tradition of the Christmas photo cards has grown from a couple of photo albums to a five-foot Christmas photo card tree that’s decorated with twinkly white Christmas lights and past and present photo Christmas cards inter twined amongst the lights with a bright shining star tree topper. My family loves to mail me their personalized Christmas cards to add to the tree, which we call the “Memory Tree.” Who would of thought that the simple gift of Christmas photo cards would be the perfect gift to start everlasting family memories.

You know that you are taking a lot of (possibly too many) digital photos when a two year old sees you with your camera and then sweetly asks, “You want to take my picture?” This is what my grandson said to me recently when he noticed me spying on him, trying to take a cute candid shot with my digital camera. He then put on his sweetest smile and then gave me the perfect pose. He’s a natural (when he wants to be)!

I have another grandson, who when asked to sit with his brother and sisters, will tell them to just smile for one minute so I can get the picture. He knows that I will try to get the perfect photo and if they will just cooperate, they will get to escape sooner. Now this child of 11 years knows the routine! Unfortunately, for him and those of us trying to get a decent picture for our photo Christmas cards, this is no easy task. You see, he has four sisters, ranging in ages from two to nine, and a younger brother of three years. Have you ever tried to get six kids to sit for more than a few seconds? Don’t even think about trying to get them all to smile while facing the camera! I don’t think there is one among us who can’t relate!

Some of my favorite family digital photo Christmas cards are the ones that aren’t “perfect.” They show the one child folded in half, trying to get away while dad is holding him, grimacing as he tries to contain the slippery little devil. Or they show mom with the “look” on her face as she tries to will her daughter into submission. Now we all know the “look” just doesn’t work.

The moral of this story is that there is no perfect picture. Just imagine the future conversations that will arise when going back to these photo cards. I bet that the real conversation pieces will be the ones that weren’t absolutely perfect, but the ones that just happened!

If you ask a 4th grade student what their parents do for a living you may be surprised at their response. My daughter, Caroline, knows I work on a computer but beyond that, it is a mystery to her. My husband works from home, which gives her many opportunities to see what he is doing, while I drive off into the sunrise with my coffee each morning. At dinnertime, I usually make it a point to ask her about her day at school and any projects she is working on. I wouldn’t think my workday would be interesting to a kid, but when I asked her if she wanted to come to work with me, she happily accepted.

On Bring Your Child to Work Day, Caroline is seen here photographing her own greeting card design to be included in a catalog spread.

After our commute and reading all of the billboards along the roadway, we arrived at the office. Going up the elevator to my floor and swiping in were big hits. The first order of business was creating a name tag. With the help of one of our Art Techs, a rainbow name tag was printed and proudly worn. The next task on the list was to design a greeting card. This was especially fun for Caroline and later in the day, our Graphics Manager helped her photograph her card in an environment shot. The photo was printed and added to a catalog spread just as we do for our real catalogs. The Analysis Team gave the kids a word search where they had to find some of our better-known customers like Burger King and Duracell. Other activities included filing, shredding, and filling out a questionnaire about our photo Christmas cards. Last, but not least, a pizza lunch was provided and for dessert, the Graphics Manager served pudding in flowerpots with cookie crumb dirt and flowers.

The ride home and busy day lulled Caroline to sleep and gave me time to reflect. As a working mom, I sometimes second-guess myself when it comes to balancing my time at home with my time at work. Spending the day with Caroline and sharing what I do helped her to understand who I am as a person as well as opening her mind to opportunities and experiences for her own future.

“Just because it’s new doesn’t mean it’s better.” This has been my mantra for some time now. However, I must admit, just because something’s new doesn’t mean I should shun it. Case in point: digital cameras and photo Christmas cards.

Although my grown children have often mocked my photographic results, I resisted buying a new-fangled digital camera. After all, I already had a “perfectly good” old camera. Surely a year of picture development would give me one good shot for my photo Christmas cards.

But then I won a new digital camera! It remained in its box for weeks, a mystery to me. When would I get the patience to sit down with the user’s manual and try to figure this thing out? I mentioned this to my 11-year-old granddaughter who said, “You can bring it to me and I’ll show you how to use it. It’s easy!”

Bless her heart! After about two seconds in her hands, with the manual still sealed closed in its plastic, she demonstrated and explained the basic operation of my new camera, its memory card and batteries, how to zoom in and out, how to view already-taken pictures, how to delete the “flubs” I didn’t want to develop. She was an amazingly good and efficient instructor.

Now I’m getting so many great shots of my grandchildren, it will be difficult to select only one for my digital photo Christmas cards. However, since I’ll need my granddaughter to show me how to transfer my digital photos to my computer, maybe I’ll just let her make the selection!

I just discovered an alternative to the oh-so-popular digital photo Christmas cards. Instead of the picture being printed on the front of your photo Christmas cards, these designs come with an attractive border and the center is left blank for you to insert an actual photo. And if you’d like, you can even have your name printed on the front.

What makes these photo holder holiday cards different and very versatile is that they come ready for you to attach any photo you want. Not all of them have to have the same picture. You can change the picture you’re sending according to your audience!

Mike Casale's Sterling Elegance, Design #642CS, is a wonderful photo holder holiday cards design to send to your friends and loved ones. The simple yet elegant silver embossed frame is the perfect accompaniment to any family photo.

I’ve seen some of these photo holder cards with slits cut in the corners and you attach your photo by slipping the corners into the slits. Another kind comes with glue dots that you use to adhere your photo to the card. With either type, the picture is detachable and can be kept by the recipient. When family pictures are involved, this usually makes for happy friends and relatives but your photos can also be used to customize Christmas cards for all sorts of individuals and businesses. Digital cameras make it so easy to take good shots and discard bad ones. There’s really no limit to the ways you can customize your photo Christmas cards.

I love getting photo Christmas cards, but even though digital photography has made holiday photo card preparation less of a guessing game, I keep hearing hair-raising tales about taking pictures of your kids for this annual display of joy and perfection.

It seems if your children are young, it’s hard to find a season when at least one of them isn’t sick and/or looking sickly. The older and busier they get, the harder it is to schedule a photo shooting session when everyone can be there at the same time. The tension and pressure on these photo dates can leave some looking grim and others shedding tears.

Not to mention the scenic preparations. Not only do your kids have to look all bright and blissful, but the background has to look like Wonderland. Do you knock yourself out cleaning and staging your household photo background for “the Christmas card photo date?” Or, do you pray that on the date you’ve set for your outdoor shoot, the sun and wind and flora will cooperate?

Designs like #F19DW, Straight Up Pink
Christmas Photo Card, allow you to upload 3 individual photos of your kids.

Ready for the solution? Here it is – don’t rely on a perfect single photo of the whole group all together. Instead, choose photo Christmas cards that allow you to upload two or three photos, each to its own separate space on the front of the card! How simple is that?!

Now you can go back and zoom in to that great picture of little Billy with the missing-tooth-grin on his first day of back-to-school; you can show your glowing little ballerina posed for her winter recital; and you can show your new high school grad in the famous cap and gown. This plan allows you to show each youngster at their best and projecting their own unique personality. As a bonus, these pictures tell a story about your family’s activities over the past year, perhaps saving you from having to compose the dreaded “Holiday Letter”.

Maybe I surround myself with weirdos, but many of my family and friends do not like having their picture taken. This can make photographing people a bit of a chore, especially if your attempting to snap a decent picture for your photo Christmas cards. Ask my mother to sit down and smile for a Christmas morning pose in her robe and she’ll tell you to wait while she puts on her face. Ask my brother to smile and he’ll give you the same blank stare that you are used to seeing on a driver’s license – or maybe a celebrity mug shot! And my friend Sabrina…the great majority of photos snapped of that woman consist of the top of her head and a napkin, glass, or other object to block out the rest of her face.

But I digress. In this age of digital photography and photo-editing, people do not have to be afraid of their yellow teeth or under-eye circles. It’s as easy as snapping the shutter button, inserting the SD card into your card reader, and opening Photoshop on your computer. You can whiten teeth, get rid of red eye, and even airbrush out the unsightly pimple that crept onto your chin overnight! Sure, it used to be that the only photographs that looked good were the ones in magazines, but if you have a savvy computer friend (or anyone under the age of thirteen) in your household, you have the power to make your digital photo Christmas cards really stand out.

So the next time you whip out your camera, only to be met with eye rolls, sighs, and the sight of your Uncle Tony fleeing the scene, let the subjects of your photos know that you’ve got it covered. They may ask to see proof, but it will be worth it to never have to photograph a “talk to the hand” pose again!

Vacation photos frequently have fabulous backgrounds, built-in so to speak, making them a rich and unique source of that perfect shot for your photo Christmas cards. Your photos may include the Grand Canyon or Niagara Falls in the background. Perhaps you’re standing by a huge redwood tree, or toes-in-sand with the ocean surf behind you. Maybe you were captured, screaming on the downhill side of a roller coaster ride! How about under a Broadway marquee or a-sail on the Hudson with the Statue of Liberty off your shoulder?

Whether you’re using your photos to send holiday greetings or using them as invitations, announcements, or thank you cards, you might not need to go crazy trying to devise a new display shot. Digital photos make the whole process that much simpler. You can easily scan your already-available vacation photos until you find “the one.” These days you can even cleverly crop your digital vacation photos to eliminate that stranger whose loud clothing accidentally appeared off to the side of your familial group. Better yet, if you thought to ask that stranger to snap the picture so no one is left out by standing behind the camera!

One of the really nice attributes of vacation photos is that everyone tends to look genuinely happy, at-ease, and naturally well-rested. Honeymoon shots make excellent first Christmas photo cards, not to mention distinctive thank-you-for-the-wedding-present cards!

Give it some thought. Which would you rather have people see – frozen smiles from a studio shot or mischievous grins from the backyard kiddies’ pool during your economically-challenged vacation?

Every year, without fail, I receive tons of photo Christmas cards from my family, my friends, and even my stockbroker. Unlike the other beautiful greeting cards that I receive, display all over my house, and then throw away in January, I just can’t bring myself to throw away the holiday photo cards.

These holiday cards, most of which are created with digital photos from Christmas scenes past and present, contain images of people I know and love. How could I possibly throw them away? It would be too devastating, like somehow throwing them away. I just can’t do it. So instead, I add them to my picture box and one day I will gather them and finally make that memory scrapbook I have been promising myself I’d make for years.

It’s amazing how over the years the people depicted in the holiday photo cards have grown. They started as babies or as young families and over time have grown into young adults, ever expanding families, and yes – even old families. I would really love to make photo albums for each family and arrange the pictures chronologically so they too can be reminded of how time flies and also of how old they are!

Seems everyone has gotten on the sending Christmas photo cards bandwagon, myself included. While I started sending Christmas photo cards way before some of my friends and family did, mine is now just another photo card amongst the sea of them that I get every year. My brother also found himself in this position and decided to break away from the pack. I always like to complain that my brother got all the creative genes, leaving none for me. He did send out his usual Christmas cards with a photo of his lovely boys, but for a select few close family and friends, he decided to do something a little extra. Along with the photo Christmas cards, he sent each of us a drum. Yes, you read it correctly, a drum (as in the Little Drummer Boy).

Now I should say that when my brother gets an idea, he does like to go all out. I found out later that he spent many days locked away in his office during Christmastime making these drums much to my sister-in-law’s frustration. It was a beautiful, functioning drum and it had the Christmas card photo of the boys on the barrel of it! What a great idea! He also had the forethought of making it a miniature drum that could be hung as an ornament on our Christmas tree. So I will now always have my little drummer boys (nephews) on my Christmas tree, year after year, and my brother can continue to call himself the creative one.