2 hours ago
3
In my family, Christmas isn’t just a holiday … It’s an obsession. And my mother? She’s the matriarch of mistletoe.
Every December, our home transformed into a living snow globe. We didn’t just buy ornaments, we made them. We didn’t watch Christmas movies, we lived them. We’d cut down our own trees, hand-string popcorn garlands and spend full afternoons debating the correct angle of the angel on top of the tree.
But nestled inside all that holiday joy was one tiny annual trauma: the family photo.
This wasn’t just a casual snap on the stairs. No, no. This was a professional photoshoot. With outfits. And a booking. At Sears.
For those unfamiliar with American suburban customs in the 1990s, let me set the scene. Once a year, children across the country were dressed in matching red sweaters, dragged to department stores and forced to smile in front of beige backdrops while a man named Gary – who most definitely had a ponytail – snapped away with a camera the size of a microwave.
My mother took this annual production very seriously. We were her Christmas card, naturally. And her card was an artform. She coordinated outfits like a Vogue stylist on a budget. She barked hair instructions like Anna Wintour. If Anna Wintour was a hair stylist. There were props, poses, image references and a level of emotional intensity normally reserved for Oscar campaigns.
My sister cried. My brother complained. As the eldest (10, but emotionally already 40), I begged them both to just smile so we could all go home. My father, in the most traditional of father fashion, played court jester behind the photographer, waving stuffed animals and making fart noises to try to elicit joy from our dead-eyed little faces. Mom would rush in to fix a cowlick, whisper “chin down!” through gritted teeth and sprint back behind the lights like a woman possessed.
It probably lasted an hour. Maybe less. But to us? It felt like eternity.
By the time I was 10, I knew what was coming. As soon as Mom uttered the words “It’s photo time,” you’d hear synchronised groaning from the backseat and I’d begin my breathing exercises. We’d arrive at the studio in funereal silence, negotiating bribes for good behaviour. The shoot would end with at least one of us in tears, often my mother, and my dad stress-sweating through his Christmas jumper.
Now, look. I get it. I’m a parent now. I understand the panicked need to capture everything. To freeze time in pixels before your children grow out of their footie pyjamas and into someone else’s wardrobe. I want the memories, too. I ache for them, honestly.
And I do, genuinely, love those old Christmas pictures. I display them proudly. I included a few in my memoir. I even sent one to my Aussie therapist once to give her “an idea of what we were dealing with”.
But there’s a certain type of generational healing that comes from saying: “That ends with me.”
So I made a decision a few years back. In our house, the Christmas photo still exists. But it follows a very different set of rules: Keep it quick, keep it casual, and if it’s not funny … what’s the point?
My husband and I don’t hire fancy photographers. We don’t stage anything and we certainly don’t pay for props. We put on reindeer antlers, naturally. We bribe the twins with marshmallows, of course. But we take three photos max. If no one smiles, then we reframe the image as Victorian. If the kids are unsure, my husband and I pretend to burst into tears. Two years ago, we tried to take a family photo and the kids just weren’t in the mood. What did we do? We bailed. There’s no photographic evidence of Christmas that year. Shockingly, life went on.
Our most “liked” family photo features my husband and I fake-sobbing next to a mall Santa Claus while the twins look on with utter confusion. We printed it out, framed it and emailed it to the family … with the subject line: Season’s Greetings from the Hot Mess Express.
Because that’s us. We’re not trying to win Christmas. We’re just trying to survive it with our sense of humour intact.
Somewhere sitting in America, I imagine, my mother is proud. Not because I’ve continued her tradition. But because I understand it now. I understand the desperate, aching love behind every forced smile. The longing to hold on to something, anything, that proves you were all together, and happy, and safe.
So maybe it did scar me. Just a little. But only the tiniest stain on an otherwise perfect holiday jumper. And honestly? That’s the stuff that makes the best stories anyway.
