Holiday Photos in 10 Easy Steps

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holiday photo ten easy steps Providence Moms Blog

  1. Find a photographer in September. No seriously; that’s when they book for holiday sessions. Crazy, I know.
  2. Spend hours on Pinterest finding the perfect color pallet for your family to wear. Who’s a winter, who’s an autumn, and will this color clash with their eyes? Pin 100 photos of well put together families frolicking around a tree farm and imagine how wonderful your photos will look.
  3. Start shopping. This should be fun right? Wrong. These somehow become the most stressful clothing shopping trips.
  4. Buy outfits, at separate stores obviously, and bring them all home only to realize that you hate them all and are quickly back to square one.
  5. Head back to Pinterest, preferably with a bottle of your favorite adult beverage and/or pint of ice cream.
  6. Make the mistake of asking your husband for input on your outfit choices. Spend the rest of the night staring him down and shooting him evil glances because: “I don’t care, just pick whatever you want.”
  7. Go back to a store you’ve already been to twice, find a dress you already bought and returned, and fall in love. Find the toddler the dress you saw online, in her size! Find your husband the perfect plaid shirt in the perfect colors to match your dress. Buy your tween’s dress on Amazon while you’re waiting to check out at the store. Accomplish this in a matter of 15 minutes which is all the time it should have taken in the first place.
  8. Text your friends way too many photos of your outfits in different lighting with different accessories. Thankfully your friends know to just praise your choices for fear of being dragged out on another shopping excursion. Plan hair, shower schedules, what time you need to leave. Find the ideal pose for your family and picture how wonderful your new family photos will look over the mantle.
  9. Spend the morning of photos stressing out about anything, snap at your husband and kids a few times. Load everyone into the car, stop for munchkins because no good picture comes without bribery, and arrive in the nick of time for your time slot. Plead with your children through clenched teeth, tickle them, and pray to the photo gods for a few good shots.
  10. Wait for what seems like years (in reality maybe two weeks) for your photos. Realize your photographer is a genius and your children look almost angelic. Spend the next week of your life picking out the favorite holiday card to send out. This includes screenshots, links, and late night texts to your friend. Realize it’s now mid-November, pick out the cheapest card you don’t hate, order with 1 hour printing and call it a day.

The following year you tell yourself it will be different, that you’ll be more organized and put together.  Fall will inevitably come and you’ll scramble again; maybe even swear off family photos in the future.  But when you finally sit down at night and see your photos hanging ever so nicely in your destroyed living room you realize, maybe, just maybe it was all worth it.