Holiday Card Tips for Busy Parents

We get it. Holiday cards are another thing on your ever growing list of things to do before the end of the year. After all the concerts, pageants, parties, and classroom gift exchanges, the last thing you want to do is sit down and create a holiday card. Do people even do this any more? Does it matter?

The answer is yes. The holiday card tradition isn’t going anywhere. And yes, it matters. Because every opportunity you have to celebrate your family and share your story with those you love matters.

That said, in order to make holiday cards more manageable, and to make creating and sharing your holiday cards a fun holiday tradition, rather than a tired holiday chore, try these tips.

Be Real

Stop aiming for overly staged moments that don’t feel authentic to your family. This makes it so much easier for your kids (and your partner) to participate comfortably. And it makes the experience enjoyable for all of you.

Drop your notions of “supposed to be” and share who you are. That’s what your loved ones want to spend time with - and what you deserve to celebrate.

Be Simple

No props, no costumes. This is a holiday card, not a magazine spread. Enjoy the moment and share who you are in a way that feels natural. Step away from the pressure you impose on yourself, or the pressure you perceive others are putting on you.

Take this opportunity to sit down with your family and have a conversation about what the year felt like for each of you. What moments mattered the most to each of you? What did you learn? What do you want to celebrate.

We find that family conversations like this are especially helpful for getting ready for your holiday card video shoot. While we never recommend “rehearsing” for holiday video card shoots (or any of our Portraits that Move film shoots!), it is always a good idea to take a moment for conversation with your family.

Whenever you can center yourselves and share what your individual and collective experience feels like - what your life really is like - you are not only participating in the power of storytelling, you are getting a real sense of the powerful, beautiful, simple ways all of your moments add up together to create your life.

Make it Move

One of the things that our clients appreciate most about our take on holiday cards is that they are moving video messages that they can share far and wide. Gone are the costs of mailing, the long lines at the post office, or the many trips to the mailbox.

With our videos, families send and share their real voices - their moving images - with the ones they love.

Get Help

You don’t have to do it all yourself. If you’re designing a card, use templates. Encourage your kids to design and create the card themselves - to make it more authentic, to give them a chance to share their creativity, and to take some of the load off you. And call us!

For a Portraits that Move holiday video card, all you need to do is open your door to us. We do all the rest. And we are grateful to be a part of your holiday traditions.

A Gift From Us

From now until December 23, book a Signature Portrait Video (to be filmed any time in 2020) and get a FREE Portraits that Move Holiday Card Video.




Holiday Gift Guide 2018

We are so excited to share our first ever Portraits that Move Holiday Gift Guide! To celebrate the season, we have put together a list of gifts that reflect the beauty and joy of documenting family life and the small moments that make it so special.

We are featuring these products because we love how they connect with what is important to us and we think that you will, too. None of these products have paid for placement on our site, and we do not receive any compensation for linking to third party products.

Grandparent and Grandchild Keepsake Letter Book Set

Image via Uncommon Goods

Created by Knoxville, Tennessee based artist Whitney Biggs, this letter book set gives children and grandparents the chance to connect with each other through storytelling.

Using storytelling to connect across generations is something we love! It’s part of what inspired us to create our Generations Videos, and it is just the kind of thing that keeps the magic of the holidays going well beyond the end of the season.

Letters to My Future Self

Image via Amazon

Document your own story through letter writing with the Letters to My Future Self kit. This is a wonderful gift for a friend or family member who loves to write, to document, and to build their own story.

Conversations with My Father and Mother

Image via Uncommon Goods

These lovely books are a perfect place for your family to write down the conversations that make up the history of our lives. We are huge believers in the power of conversation, especially conversations with kids, in documenting family life and preserving our memories for ourselves and for future generations.

Comic Book Pop Art from Photos

Image via MyDaVinci

Give your loved ones a totally unique gift, in the style of Roy Lichtenstein pop art from MyDaVinci. Submit your photo and they create a pop art version of the image for display in your home. You can choose from a variety of size and framing options, and you can even add a talk bubble!

Illustory

Image via Amazon

Give kids the chance to tell their story in their own words inside a book they design and create themselves. This is a gift many times over, from an activity to keep kids entertained over holiday break, to a keepsake that your family will enjoy for years to come.

In our experience creating videos for families, you are guaranteed for a treat when you give kids the chance - and the space - to share their stories in any form.

Custom Family Video

Give your loved ones the gift of a Portraits that Move Gift Card. Available in any denomination, up to the full price of a Signature Portrait Video, our gift card makes it easier for families to get their own custom heirloom quality video that documents the treasured moments of their lives right now.


Kid Quotes Memory Book

Image via Uncommon Goods

Oh, the things kids say! Write down the funniest and most poignant quotes from your kids in the new year in this adorable Kid Quotes Memory Book created by Colorado-based graphic designer Amy Taylor.

We love celebrating the things kids say, and we know better than anyone that you absolutely will forget what you don’t document. This is the perfect gift for yourself or for another parent who will appreciate a place to store their kids’ comments, from the whimsical, to the witty, to the wise.

My Family Cookbook

Image via Uncommon Goods

Preserve your family’s precious recipes - and the memories that go along with them - in My Family Cookbook. This book give you a place to gather all your favorite recipes, along with the photos and stories that go with them.

Invite family members to contribute, or use it as a chance to gather your family and work on creating the cookbook together. This is the perfect gift for new couples, or for young adults heading off to college or starting out in new cities.

Mixtiles

Image via Mixtiles

We love this affordable way to turn your family photos into gallery walls! This is a great project to enjoy putting together as a family. Involve your kids in choosing the photos to print and in creating the gallery wall in your home.

Tiles can be moved around easily so it’s a fun, interactive way to tell your family’s story through photography you create.

Parenting Misadventures Journal

Image via Uncommon Goods

Know a new mom or dad with a good sense of humor about the parenting journey? This book is for them!

Write down everything from the crazy advice you got before baby arrived to the epic tantrums in Target because, believe it or not, you don’t want to forget those moments either. It’s all part of your history, and it will make you laugh… eventually.

Rememory Game

Image via Uncommon Goods.

This holiday gift combines two things we love - family games and family memories. The Rememory Game is a fun way to recall family stories and memories and to introduce the next generation to your family’s treasured stories and moments.

Giving Tuesday is a Day to Share Love and Gratitude

Today and every day, we are aware of the importance of giving in order to create moments of joy for others. This year, we compiled a list of non-profits that are giving beautiful gifts to individuals and communities through hard work and dedication.

Non-profits like these benefit from your generosity, and so do those they serve. Take a moment today to look at some of the work they are doing. We invite you to be inspired by the joy and healing they put out into the world.

Make a Wish Foundation

The Make a Wish Foundation is dear to the heart of our founder and executive producer, Susannah Ludwig, and the company that she created. Susannah’s early life was marked by multiple life saving surgeries.

This helped her to realize that every day is a gift and there is joy even in the smallest moments. The Make a Wish Foundation believes that “one moment changes everything.” The foundation helps to make wishes come true for children with critical illnesses, making treasured moments for children and their families.

Kids in Need Foundation

As a Board Member of Kids the Kids in Need Foundation, Susannah gets to see first hand the good work that this organization does in communities around the United States.

Kids in Need provides backpacks and school supplies for students living in poverty so that they are able to go to school confident and ready to learn. As Susannah shares, “it makes a huge difference for kids… you can see how having their own school supplies, something that may seem so small, improves their self esteem.”

Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation

Through Portraits that Heal, we have helped Alex’s Lemonade Stand share its mission to cure childhood cancer by sharing the stories of children the organization has helped.

Alex’s Lemonade stand, founded by parents who lost their daughter to cancer, supports funding for fighting childhood cancer by raising money for scientific research and by helping families who are living with cancer.

See more of Kaela’s Hero Story, created by Portraits that Heal.

Feeding Matters

Feeding Matters is committed to helping kids who have trouble eating. In addition to connecting to Susannah’s childhood surgeries and related challenges, the mission of helping children be nourished so they can thrive is an inspiring and important mission.

The organization “furthers advances in pediatric feeding disorder by accelerating identification, igniting research, and promoting collaborative care for children and families.” The work they do is not always recognized on a large national stage but it makes a tremendous impact on the children and families whose lives they change.



Manna

Manna, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is more than a food bank. The organization promotes therapeutic nutrition, working hard to connect those in need with healthy food. As the organization explains, Manna “uses nutrition to improve health for people with serious illnesses who need nourishment to heal.” The Manna team does this by providing medically tailored meals and nutrition education… to improve their health and quality of life.”

Portraits that Move remembers Manna in a special way this Giving Tuesday. Founder Susannah Ludwig’s aunt, who passed away just before Thanksgiving, was a deeply involved volunteer with Manna. We encourage those who are moved to support the organization to do so in her memory.

Brooklyn Public Library

Libraries always need funding! The contributions they make to our local communities is incredible, though often unsung. From literacy programs for kids to job resources for adults, the Brooklyn Public Library is both a cultural center and a center of service for our communities.

How many small, special moments have you created with your kids in your neighborhood library? Help them keep making moments like these for our kids and our neighbors.

Arthur Project

The Arthur Project helps underserved middle school students. Providing mentoring to students at this critical juncture in their lives can help to transform their experience and put them on the path to health, safety, and success, as it did for the organization’s co-founder in her own life.

Susannah recently worked with Snapdragon Films to create a video for the Arthur Project and has been inspired by the work the organization does. The Arthur Project is a new non-profit tackling challenges in new and engaging ways.

Where should I schedule my holiday video card shoot?

We've been asked by some of our clients about the best places to shoot a holiday card video.  Over the years, we have found that the most important thing is for your kids to be comfortable.  After all, our holiday video cards are as much about celebrating the season and the milestones of the year in your family's life as they are about giving your children the opportunity to speak freely and comfortably about how they are feeling and what they are experiencing at this exciting, sometimes frantic, hopefully magical time of year.

Sometimes that means scheduling our holiday video card shoot outdoors at your favorite park, where we can get the full beauty of the autumn leaves and catch your kids in action running, feeling free, and enjoying a place that is special to them.

Other times, it means scheduling a family video shoot at home, where your kids can show off some of their favorite toys, tell us the stories behind their favorite holiday decorations, and feel totally comfortable in the space you have made for them.

Wherever you choose to schedule your holiday video card shoot, we will be there to help you celebrate your family, your year, and the unique and beautiful voices of your children.  

That's our kind of holiday magic.

We are all booked up for this weekend, 11/4.  Reserve your spot for Sunday, 11/19 by filling out our registration form or calling us directly: 917-750-0031