She's dreaming of that perfect Christmas photo card

The Boston Globe

Beverly Beckham

My first Christmas card arrived a few days ago. It was still November and there it was, a photo card, no less, perfectly lighted and cropped and addressed and mailed!

I studied it while eating Thanksgiving leftovers. How is it possible that people are this organized?

Last year at Thanksgiving, all my grandchildren were in one place - my house for the long weekend - and I dressed them in brand new, (which means, as yet unstained) matching Christmas pajamas. Then I rounded them up, begged them to sit still, look at the camera and smile.

They smiled - but not all at once, and they did not sit still. They were like puppies, wriggling and jumping and wagging what could have been their tales. Two 1-year-olds, a 4-year-old, and a 5-year-old. I wound up yelling at them. How's that for Christmas cheer?

I got a picture, finally, after snapping about a hundred. Then I downloaded them, cropped them, asked all the parents which picture they liked best, and ordered who knows how many?

A great start. I had the best intentions . . . but I never got around to addressing and mailing them until a few days before Christmas.

Next year, I said then. Next year will be different.

Now it is next year and I am going into this card thing at a huge disadvantage. The children were never all together for a group shot this year. Four of them made it to the Cape in July and thinking this might be my only opportunity to get a photo of most of them, I begged them to sit on the steps of our rented cottage and pose for pictures, assuming that later, when I learned how, I could Photoshop in the missing baby.

Four children just back from the beach, hair awry, sand all over them, cute sweatshirts. Yes, they all say ``Cape Cod.'' But look at the faces! Megan is scowling and Charlotte is yawning and Lucy is looking to the left and Adam is looking to the right. And that's how it is in every picture: Someone is squinting. Someone is pouting. Someone is pushing the person next to her. And someone is completely turned around.

And learning to Photoshop? To cut and paste a baby into all this? What was I thinking?

A few Christmases ago, a friend sent a photo card of her grandchildren, three boys and a girl, all under six and all very Hanna Andersson. They wore red: Three red sweaters and one red dress. They had shiny shoes and clean faces and hair newly combed.

The children were sitting on a white couch. They were sitting up straight. They were looking at the camera. They were not sticking out their tongues or crossing their eyes. They were smiling! And to make things even more picture-perfect, there was a dog in the photo, too. A golden retriever, not retrieving anything, just lying still like a stuffed dog, like a dog on Valium.

I want to send a card like this. That's my goal. Red sweaters. New shoes. A couch, maybe not white, but with a white throw, and never mind the dog. I'll settle for just the kids for now. How hard could this be?

Not hard. Impossible.

So I am going for creative this year. No browbeating the children. No Photoshopping the families. I am going to do what good cooks do all the time: to use what I have.

I have individual photos of all the kids. Hundreds of them. I've uploaded them into one file. Now I am comparing, seeing which goes with which.

I've found a card I like. It holds five photos. Next step choosing, then ordering, then holding my breath.

I save all the photo cards people send me. I keep them in a box upstairs, and every December I bring them down and place them in a Christmas bowl in the kitchen.

I love these cards, all of them, the ones with Santa, the ones with dogs and cats and kids on horses, children squinting, children grimacing, all the kids and families changing and growing. They're all perfect cards. Everyone hushed for the moment. Eyes on the camera. Smile now. Cheese!