Necessity is the Mother of Invention

Tradition # 5: CHRISTMAS PICTURES WITH THE GIRLS

I would venture to say that almost everyone has a picture from their childhood taken at a department store studio like JC Penney or Sears. I certainly have my share. They run all kinds of promotions and excited new parents flock to record their little darling's childhood in pictures with cheesy backgrounds. I, too, was one of those excited new parents. I would take my oldest and change her into her Sunday best in the little dressing room and take her out to the studio and sit her up on the little table, and stand there and act like a fool to get her to look at the camera. I have several pictures recording the first 18 months of her life, and then it happened. We took her to Sears Studios just like we'd been doing for the past 18 months, and changed her into her Christmas dress, and took her out to sit her on the little table, and SHE FLIPPED OUT!! She started to cry and fight me, and we could not calm her down. Of course she was not communicating her fear very well at 18 months. Pretty much all we got was a screamed NOOOOOO!!!!!! This presented a dilemma. How was I to get that adorable picture of my little sweetheart to place in the Christmas Cards if she was terrified to get her picture taken at the studio? And thus, the tradition of Christmas Pictures with the girls began. The Christmas after she turned two, I traveled down to Colonial Williamsburg with her in her little red velvet Christmas dress and shot photo after photo of her in front of toy store windows and by holly bushes and on steps and benches decorated in their Holiday finery. She had fun, and so did I. I got much better pictures than I would have ever gotten at a studio because I was capturing her not just a picture of her. We never went to another studio for Christmas Pictures. When her little sister came along we continued to have our annual "photo shoot". They are now 15 and 18, and it's one of the things that we really look forward to each year. We've used different locations, The James Center in downtown Richmond filled with lighted reindeer, the cobblestone streets of Shockoe Slip, and the beautiful, historic Jefferson Hotel complete with Staircase resembling the one in "Gone with the Wind". This year we shot on location in Manteo and Duck, NC during Thanksgiving. Decked out in "Santa" hats and red and green, we brought a little Christmas to the Beach. So what started because of a 2 year old's strong opposition to the department store photo studio has turned into one of my most treasured traditions of Christmas.