Hello friends. We’re in the final countdown to Christmas. We’re heading out the door tonight for the in-laws and I should be packing and wrapping and looking at my list and loading up the car, but I wanted to thank you all first for the beautiful Christmas cards. I know capturing that special photo wasn’t easy. So I wrote some tips for this month’s Prairie Parent.
How to take a Christmas card photo
14 easy steps
Photo submitted by Courtney Crane
Merry Christmas! Love you all.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch... 
OMG. My mother was a tad obsessed with taking the Christmas card photo. So much so that as the years went by she started harassing us about it in August because, you know, college? Then there was the year that she cut and pasted several of us into the photo because we weren’t officially living at home anymore. (Read as: had finished school, moved out of state, had lives of our own) This was decades (many) before Photoshop, so she didn’t exactly fool anyone, except maybe herself? Did she suffer through yearly groaning? You bet! Protests? (We’re too old for that!) Was anyone except her ever happy with the winning photo? Never! But today both parents are long gone and the results of those crazy photo capers? They have been lovingly and dutifully preserved in several family photo albums that never fail to make me smile when I get to see them. So shoot away, and by all means, keep the rejects. Some day you’ll look back at those and they will be the pictures that will bring the biggest smiles. Merry Christmas to you and yours. 🙂