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.

Giving Tuesday Ideas for 2019

When Giving Tuesday comes around, it can be difficult to decide where - and how - you want to give. We have compiled a list of some of our favorite organizations. On this busy day during this ever-busy season, we invite you to get to know these organizations that are close to our hearts.

Please consider giving to them, or to a cause that it is most meaningful to you. May your day be filled with generosity and gratitude!

KIDS IN NEED FOUNDATION

The mission of the the Kids in Need Foundation is to ensure that every child is prepared to learn and succeed in the classroom by providing free school supplies nationally to students most in need.

We are extremely proud to be part of helping the Kids in Need Foundation share their stories.

MANNA

MANNA, a Pennsylvania-based organization, uses nutrition to improve health for people with serious illnesses who need nourishment to heal. By providing medically tailored meals and nutrition education, we empower people to improve their health and quality of life.

LUSTGARTEN FOUNDATION

As the Lustgarten Foundation explains, its mission is to cure pancreatic cancer by funding scientific and clinical research related to the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of pancreatic cancer; by providing research information and clinical support services to patients, caregivers and individuals at high risk; and by increasing public awareness and hope for those dealing with this disease.

WOODS

Woods is a multi-service population health management and advocacy organization that along with its five affiliate organizations provides innovative, comprehensive and integrated health, education, housing, workforce, behavioral health and case management services to more than 18,000 children and adults in the intellectual and developmental disability, child welfare, behavioral and brain trauma public health sectors who have complex and intensive medical and behavioral healthcare needs.

* All mission language about the organizations has been obtained directly from each organization's website.

Teach Kids Gratitude during the Holidays

Teaching kids gratitude during the holiday season can be a challenge. Sometimes it feels like we spend all of our energy on creating memorable holiday experiences, decorating things just-so, and finding the right gift (a few times over) for our favorite people. Then, as the season draws to a close, we realize that there is a lot of giving but not a lot of gratitude.

But it’s about more than gifts. As parents, we don’t need our kids to bend over backwards telling us how grateful they are for the things we give them. What we really want - the reason we jump headlong into the holiday craziness and wait on hours-long lines - is to make memories that our children will cherish. To start and continue traditions that make them happy, that remind them, and us, of how grateful we are to have each other.

We’ve gathered a few of our favorite posts to help you teach your kids about gratitude this season, and to keep the grateful vibes well into the new year.

Start a Daily Gratitude Practice with your Kids

I try to use gratitude in my home as a regular on-going conversation with my son.  When we focus on gratitude, it can create good feeling and closeness. Sometimes I will ask my son during dinner what happened in his day that made him feel grateful.

Other times as I am tucking him into bed, I will tell him the 5 things about my day that I am grateful for and ask him about his.

There are a lot of other ways to introduce gratitude into a conversation, to make it into a game and to keep it present.  I find that talking about what we are grateful for shifts things.  It makes the mood more positive, lighter and gentler…

Introduce Gratitude Games and Table Activities

I’m thinking of something that begins with the letter…

We all know the popular road trip game, where you work your way through the alphabet, guessing something that begins with each letter of the alphabet while the person who is “it” provides clues to the guessers.

Customize this game for your table. Take turns going clockwise around the table (or starting youngest to oldest). The first person who is “it” says “I’m grateful for something that begins with the letter A.” Each person around the table guesses what that is based on hints.

This is a fun, easy, and interactive way to share what you are thankful for. It is also a natural way to start a conversation around gratitude, and to teach you what little things matter to your loved ones.

Turn Your New Year’s Resolutions into Gratitude Intentions

Rather than list out resolutions, ways we want to be different, things we want to change about ourselves or our circumstances, we are choosing to focus on intention.  All of us at Portraits that Move are committing to living and working and observing with intention. 

Rather than a resolution to be more, to do more, to change this or that in a quest for a goal, this year, we are listening to that voice that reminds us to stop, to look at our life, at our work and at our goals and to determine how they align with our intention to find joy and to be grateful…

How are you practicing gratitude with your kids during the holiday season? Share with us on Facebook!

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.

Thanksgiving Conversation Starters

We are big fans of Thanksgiving at Portraits that Move because it brings together our favorite things - family and gratitude (and food!).

There is nothing like gathering together around a table to share stories and relish in the small moments that make our lives, especially our family lives, rich and memorable. But, as natural as it is to have conversations with our loved ones, the conversation doesn’t always flow naturally.

Don’t worry. We’re here to help you get the conversation started and keep it going this year at your Thanksgiving table. Try these tips for a fun, stress-free Thanksgiving for families of all ages and sizes. Our conversation starters and Thanksgiving table games are guaranteed to bring joy to your table, and to teach you things about your family that you never knew.

Make the Alphabet Game the Gratitude Game

I’m thinking of something that begins with the letter…

We all know the popular road trip game, where you work your way through the alphabet, guessing something that begins with each letter of the alphabet while the person who is “it” provides clues to the guessers.

Customize this game for your Thanksgiving table. Take turns going clockwise around the table (or starting youngest to oldest). The first person who is “it” says “I’m grateful for something that begins with the letter A.” Each person around the table guesses what that is based on hints.

This is a fun, easy, and interactive way to share what you are thankful for. It is also a natural way to start a conversation around gratitude, and to teach you what little things matter to your loved ones.

Popsicle Stick Conversation Starters

Craft stick conversation starters are one of our favorites! We have a complete DIY guide to creating these fun, reusable conversation starters that are perfect for Thanksgiving table games and throughout the year.

DIY Popsicle Stick Conversation Starters for Kids and Tweens
What you need:
2 mason jars
1 pack of large craft sticks
markers (we chose brightly colored and metallic Sharpies to make it extra fun)
a list of creative questions for kids

See more suggestions and tips for creating your own craft stick conversation starters. For Thanksgiving, you can customize the colors, add festive stickers and coordinate your sticks to go with your table and decor themes. It’s a great way to get the kids involved in holiday prep and to keep their hands busy while you are finishing up your last minute cooking and decorating!

Favorite Things and Follow-Ups

After everyone is seated at the table, instruct them to put their place cards in a hat (or a pumpkin, cornucopia or Thanksgiving themed cup!). The person at the head of the table pulls out one name at a time and asks that person to name one of their favorite things.

After that person shares a favorite thing, encourage everyone else around the table to ask questions about it so they can learn more. Questions can include “has that always been one of your favorites?” “What makes you like that so much…”

Other favorite things follow-ups should include things like “That’s a great book! When I was your age, my favorite book was…”

This is an easy way to learn more about each other. Favorites and follow-ups is a particularly good game if you have tweens and teens at your table who want to share but don’t always know how, and who sometimes feel too on the spot when they are barraged with questions. The key to getting kids to talk honestly and openly is to create space in which they feel comfortable, rather than exposed.

Cheers to comfortable spaces, laughter around tables, and conversations that create memories well beyond the holiday.

Happy Thanksgiving!

How to Prepare for Holiday Card Shoots

You want your holiday card to be perfect. You want it to celebrate and document your year together as a family, and to share your excitement about each other, and the coming year, with the ones you love.

These are great things to want. But they can put some pressure on you when it comes time to rally the family for your holiday card shoot. We suggest you make things as simple as possible. This keeps the holiday card experience stress free for you, and it helps to create an authentic, beautiful portrait of your family as it is right now.

With that in mind, here are our three basic tips to prepare for your holiday card shoot this year.

1. Pick Colors that Look Good on You and in the Card

Certain colors work better on film and video than others, not because they are on trend, but because they work best with light to bring out your natural beauty.

When it comes to colors, choose colors that you like, that you are comfortable in, and that are bold enough to appear on camera the way they appear to the eye in natural light.

2. Get Everything Ready the Night Before the Shoot

Just like one of our favorite Back to School tips, make sure that everything you need for your holiday card is laid out the night before the shoot. Once you have agreed on what to wear, make sure that you have it ready to go.

Not only does this save time, it frees up your energy on the day of your holiday card video shoot. What is most important for us - and for you - is that we create a holiday card that is as authentically you as it is aesthetically pleasing. Anything and everything you can do to limit stress and keep from feeling rushed heading into the shoot, helps to create the holiday card you want.

3. Go Easy on the Staging

Clearing out space for your thoughts and your feelings to come through is more important than clearing every surface in your house. Some of our clients ask about how they should stage their home for holiday card shoots and other Portraits that Move video shoots. Our recommendation is always the same. We want to document you and your family in your space in a natural way. There is no need to transform your space to look like the cover photo of Architectural Digest if that is not your family’s aesthetic, or your home's natural state.

Use the time that you would have spent meticulously staging your space to have a brief conversation with your family about high points of the year, what you are grateful for, and how you feel about your friends and family. This opens up the channels of gratitude and puts you in the mindset you need to create a heart warming, honest holiday card.

Special School Day Offer!

For all of our New York City friends who are off from school on Monday, 11/12, we are offering $50 off the price of a holiday card video if you schedule your shoot for that day. We have limited spaces available. Please contact us right away to schedule your shoot: suzlud@gmail.com or (917) 750-0031

Holiday Card Video: November and December Bookings

We do have a few shoot dates still available for your holiday card video shoots. Please contact us to schedule.

Halloween Treat

Happy Halloween!

Enjoy all the moments today with your children. Listen to their stories. Revel in their imaginations. And share their joy.

This Halloween we have a special treat for you. Book a holiday card video shoot in NYC for 11/12 (a perfect thing to do with kids on the day off from school!) and save $50.

No trick. All treat!

With delight,

Susannah and the Portraits that Move Team

How Can I Make Holiday Cards Easy this Year?

Is is just us or is 2018 flying by on the wings of To Do Lists?!?

If it’s not one thing, it’s the next, with careers, kids, families, projects, obligations, challenges (we see you, parental burnout). The holiday season is coming up fast, and, if you feel like that brings with it another competing To Do List, you are not alone.

Now is the time of year when you start looking at every photo from summer vacation, fall break, back to school, and last Tuesday, with that critical eye, thinking…

“We should do a holiday card collage!”

“Let’s combine our own photos with professional holiday card photos!!”

“Look, we can add a photo ornament to our holiday card!!!”

“How much are stamps?”

After days of planning, you realize you spent all your energy trying to imprint something and all your time packaging it. You have no time to enjoy the cards or the moments they’re supposed to capture. The holiday card that you painstakingly designed, packaged and sent is another item checked off your list. And there are so many more items stacking up.

You gave yourself more work and less joy. Your holiday card didn’t preserve a moment from this busy year. It didn’t give you a real sense of who your kids are right now - who they became over the past year.

Try Something New this Holiday Card Season

Carve out a few hours, invite us to your home or a favorite neighborhood spot. We’ll talk with you and your kids. We’ll slow down time for a little while, and in the end, you will have the perfect, moving holiday card video.

No stress, no stamps. Ready to share with friends and family, and with each other, when you just need a minute to count your blessings and see how great your life really is (buys-ness and all).

Schedule your holiday card video shoot or contact us with questions: 917-750-0031.

When Mother's Day is Hard

If you know one thing about Portraits that Move, it is that we love to celebrate life's moments of all sizes.  Our love of celebration most most certainly includes holidays, and Mother's Day holds a special place in our hearts.

As much as we love celebrating our fellow moms, we understand all too well that Mother's Day can be a painful holiday for many.  Many of us have experienced a complicated journey to motherhood, or have found that our motherhood experiences are in sharp contrast with our expectations.  We know that Mother’s Day, more often than not, can be a reminder of our losses more than a celebration of our lives.

For these reasons and so many more, as Mother’s Day approaches, we are working hard to pause, to create space for feeling, working through, and sharing all of our emotions surrounding this holiday that ends up being much more than a Hallmark moment, whether or not we had planned for that.

Our message to you this week is simple.  As you prepare for Mother's Day weekend, we invite you to look to your children for lessons and to let them take the lead in celebrating the holiday.  It is inspiring – and so impressive – to see what children are able to do when we create space for them to be heard, to share their emotions, their enthusiasm, and their ideas.

This weekend, remember to flex those muscles that motherhood hones so well: patience, gratitude, openness.  Acknowledge and honor your losses privately and with those you love.  Release your expectations for the perfect day (it doesn’t exist!).  Resist the temptation to compare your day, and the feelings you have about Mother’s Day, to your Instagram feed.  Remember to celebrate your family, your motherhood journey, and your experiences, however imperfect you may think they are.

Happy Mother's Day,

The Portraits that Move Team

Our Mother's Day Gift to You

Schedule a Portraits that Move Signature Portrait consultation by the end of the month (May 31, 2018) and get 25% off, with code #HAPPYMOMDAY

What Do Our Children Really Think about the Holiday Season?

Busy parents are a whole new kind of busy when the holiday season kicks into gear.  We have all seen that mom - or been that mom - who is running around to holiday shows, parties, picking out gifts for teachers, wrapping late into the night, and baking... and baking... and baking.

By the time we get the chance to sit down and enjoy a meal or a party with our family, those of us moms who have been running around since the week before Thanksgiving making lists and checking them more than twice, are ready to drop.  In our quest to create seasonal magic for everyone around us, we have exhausted ourselves.  And we have to wonder, have we exhausted our kids, too? 

Is there any joy left to the season, or did we schedule and plan our way out of it?

It's time to rewind and slow down before our kids become as overwhelmed as we are and the first step to doing that is by asking our children.

Asking the right questions and creating space to really listen to our children helps us to determine what traditions matter to them, and what we should skip this year.

Their answers might surprise you.  Maybe they enjoy doing a holiday craft or taking out ornaments with their baby pictures on them.  Maybe they look forward to watching a favorite movie because they like how you sing the words to all the songs and, more than anything, our children want to see us happy.  They want to know that they can bring us joy and we can share joy with them.

The gifts, the parties, the Instagram-ready decorations and desserts can be wonderful, but ask your children what moments really matter to them, what moments they think of when they consider what the holidays mean to them.  The moments might be smaller than you think, and far more special.

From all of us at Portraits that Move, we wish you a season filled with the small moments that matter, with the people that truly bring you joy.

A Gift for You

Purchase a Signature Portrait by December 31, 2017, and receive a 20% discount with code HOLIDAY2017.

Practice Gratitude by Giving

It’s Giving Tuesday, a day that we cherish at Portraits That Move. We love it because we value helping others and teaching our kids that they can have an impact on the world around them.

This year, we are giving 10% of all bookings made today to the KIDS IN NEED FOUNDATION. Kids in Need is an incredible organization that gives school supplies to children who can’t afford them. I have been involved with KINF for several years and sit on its Board of Directors.

I was moved to learn that when kids don’t have the supplies they need it can affect how they perform in school, and even more than that, how they feel about themselves. The simple act of giving children pencils, notebooks and other supplies can have a huge impact on their days, their school years and their futures.

Please have a look at KINF’s mission, consider donating or getting involved with the foundation!

With much love and gratitude,

Susannah

Modern Answer to the Snailmail Family Newsletter

Do you remember your mom writing holiday newsletters every year?  Do you remember reading the letters from her college roommates, following the lives of families you may never have met but felt you knew?

Fewer and fewer of those beloved newsletters arrive in the mail, thanks to social media, our busy lives, and the picture-perfect cards that so many of our friends and family seem to favor.

With that, some of the magic has been lost.  We've lost the chance to make a special connection around the holidays, to celebrate along with family and friends, and to share the accomplishments, changes and milestones that make up a year in the life of every family.

Our Portraits that Move team has come up with the answer.  Our Holiday Video Card lets you and your children talk about what happened over the whole year in your own words.

We're using modern ways to recapture traditional experiences of family, love, celebration and connection.  And our clients and their friends and families are loving it.

At the end of the day, the beauty of new technologies are that they offer us new ways to tell our stories.  The Portraits that Move Video Holiday Card is our cool, modern answer to snailmail family newsletter.  It is also a beautiful way to celebrate and remember a year in the life of your family.

Create your Portraits that Move Video Holiday Card

There is no better time to create your family's video holiday card.  The fall weather is gorgeous, and we are sure you have much news to share!  

Schedule your 90 minute holiday video film shoot on one of our two remaining days: Saturday, November 4, or Sunday, November 19.
 

Let Kids Take the Lead: New Ways to Celebrate Mother's Day with Family and Friends

Make this Mother’s Day special by brainstorming with your kids about how to celebrate the day in new and more inclusive ways.  Talk to your kids about the women in your circle – your family, friends and neighbors, – and ask them how they want to connect with and celebrate the women who help to shape their lives.

As is so often the case when we take the extra time to have conversations like this with our children, the answers may surprise you.  The list could include grandmothers, neighbors, godparents or teachers. It is always a moment of discovery when you let your children lead conversations about what means the most to them. 

By engaging with your children in this way, you learn who is important to them and what they are observing about their family and community.  You also come to learn how your children are practicing empathy and gratitude as they grow and change.

5 Ways to Celebrate Mother's Day through Storytelling and Sharing

Schedule Facetime or Skype calls with special women in your child's life

Seeing and hearing each other is a wonderful way for your children – and for you – to connect with the important people in your lives.  We are fortunate to have technology at our fingertips that allows us to do that.

Ask your children who they would like to connect with and schedule a time for a call the same way you would schedule an in-person meeting.  Make it an event, make it special, and most of all, let your children take the lead.  Far away friends and family will be delighted to connect one-on-one with your kids.  Your kids will feel proud to share and to celebrate these special women on Mother’s Day.

Share their Artwork

For younger children, look through art work and classroom projects and select some favorites to send to the family members on your list.  Encourage your children to share the story of why they love this piece of art, what inspired them to create it, and why they chose it for the recipient.

Sharing artwork and allowing children to talk about it helps to build their confidence, and reminds them that they have the power to bring happiness to the people they love on holidays like Mother’s Day and throughout the year.

Create Unique, Special Messages

For older children, ask them to create a unique, special message for each person on the list.  This could include writing, drawing, making jewelry or other small gifts.  This encourages your children to share their stories and their observations to help connect them with their loved one.  It gives them the chance to use their creativity and talents to let someone know that they care about them, and why.

Share a Mother's Day Video Message

Our clients love sharing Portrait Videos and Video Cards with their loved ones for Mother’s Day and other holidays.  Especially for families that do not get to see each other as much as they would like (which is all of us, really!) our videos help to give the gift of more time with the ones you love.

Plan a New Kind of Mother's Day Get Together

This year, let your children take the lead in planning a Mother’s Day get together for your whole tribe.  Include all the women your child loves.  For us moms, this new approach does mean sharing our day, but what a gift it is to know that we are able to also share the joy and love of our children – and the joy and love we have for those who care about our children and contribute to their happiness.

Mother's Day Special 

Book a Portrait between now and the end of May 2017 and save 20% when you mention the code MOM2017

How Our Passover Celebration Reminded Me about Documentation and Moments that Matter

Passover in my family is quite the celebration. My father writes an original Haggaddah (prayer book) every year. My mother is an extraordinary cook and her food is delicious on every holiday, but it is important to note, this is even true on Passover, which can be challenging for even the best cooks.

Most of all, though, the fun, these days is about the kids. At our table, we had 5 boys under the age of 10. It was energetic and loud and silly. The prayers this year were kid- friendly. My son read the four questions and my sweet nephew dressed up as Moses. It was an evening filled with laughter, fun, and closeness. Exactly the way holidays should be.

I always struggle with the pull of staying in the moment and enjoying vs. documenting the events of the day. I think most parents in this digital age feel the same. I am grateful for these few photos that my partner shot. I am grateful for the joy, my family, the freedom and this beautiful time of year.

What traditions are important to you and how do you celebrate them?

Portraits that Move client Michelle Roos shared her story about why documenting holidays, particularly Passover and her grandfather's birthday has meant so much to her.  Read her story on Kveller and share with us here and on Facebook how you are treasuring your family traditions now and throughout the year. 

All photos in post courtesy of David Marcus.

What Do You Really Need this Holiday Season?

The lists are long.  A list for entertaining, a list for baking, a list for gift giving, our children's wishlists that seem to get added to every day....

In this crush of planning and shopping and rushing towards the moments we want to remember, we know that at some point we will end up feeling lost and overwhelmed, as if all that we are supposed to be enjoying is passing us by. 

So how do we slow it down?  How do we find a way to give what really matters, what our loved ones really want?

We focus on the moment.

Think about why we are rushing and planning and making lists for the perfect gift, the perfect meal, the perfect celebration.  It is because we want to treasure our families.  We know this time is fleeting and we want to embrace it, celebrate it and slow it down enough to enjoy it, to look back on it with a warm heart, and with a calm heart.

This is what we do at Portraits that Move, we help you to slow down and savor the moment.  We help you to give the gift of more time with your family, the gift of celebrating who you are and who you are becoming together, every day.  

For the ones you love on your list, for your own family, choose the gift that we all want, the gift we all need, a moment in time that celebrates your children, your family, your life, right now, before this moment, before this holiday season, slips away.

Portraits that Move Gift Card

Our new Portraits that Move Gift Card is the perfect way for those of you who love what we do to give the gift of Portraits that Move in an affordable way, helping to make it easier for all the people on your gift giving list to own a Portrait Video or any of our other offerings by offsetting the cost, or by gifting the full price of the product.

Portraits that Move Signature Portrait

Give the gift of our Signature Portrait, what one mom calls "the perfect holiday gift."

Portraits that Move Holiday Video Card

Perfect for sending New Year greetings and holiday messages and guaranteed to be enjoyed by all the family and friends you want to share your love with, near and far.

On #GivingTuesday

We love #GivingTuesday. We love it because it highlights so much of what we are about at Portraits That Move. Sharing in joy, being generous, helping others and telling important stories are all things that we talk about every day, but especially during the holiday season.

We are giving our time (and our resources) to a number of organizations this year and we wanted to tell you about them, in the hopes that you may be inspired to do the same.

Here is our list: 

Kids in Need Foundation

KINF gives school supplies to children who cannot afford them. The organization has many important programs including backpack drives and a Second Responder Program. We have helped KINF tell their story through making a video about Jayshaun. 

Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation

Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation is an organization that supports funding for fighting childhood cancer. They do so both by raising money for scientific research and by helping families who are living with cancer.

Through Portraits that Heal, we create Hero Stories for Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation.

Meet Maggie, whose story we recently had the opportunity to share. 

Ronald McDonald House, NYC

Ronald McDonald House is a national organization that supports families of children suffering with chronic illness. They do this by providing an affordable place for families to stay when children are hospitalized for long periods of time.

We shared our experiences with Ronald McDonald House and how it helps to promote gratitude every day.

City Harvest

City Harvest provides food for New York’s hungry. This time of year it is especially important to help take care of the hungry and homeless in our city.

Portraits that Heal

We would be remiss in not mentioning our own Portraits That Heal. We accept contributions towards our work of telling stories of children suffering with childhood illness.

Learn more about Portraits that Heal and let us know if you know about an organization or an individual whose story needs to be told on #GivingTuesday and every day. 

If you know someone who has a sick child whose story needs to be told, tell us and we will do our best to tell it. All children have stories and the legacy of kids with childhood illness is valuable. Help us tell more of their stories. 

The Joy of Watching Our Children Grow

This year we have had the great blessing of working with some of our Portraits that Move families for the third year in a row. It is an incredible experience and all that I hoped it would be when I started Portraits That Move.

It is fantastic to talk to our children about what moves them, inspires them and motivates them. I love hearing about all of their feelings and observing how their interests and passions change from year to year. I am able to see the incremental change in a way that you as their parent may not always recognize. I think it is also fun for the kids. They are excited to tell me things - to show me how they have grown.

I am a person that has a heightened sense of the passage of time. As a result of the health challenges that I have had, I have always had an intense awareness of the fragility of life and the quick passage of time.  I want to preserve moments in time for you, for your family and for your children’s children.

The families that work with us year after year love having a personal catalog of our work. They enjoy both the process and the final family videos. I feel grateful for the trust they extend to me to listen to and connect with their children. I am grateful to parents for inviting me to capture the passage of time, to give the gift of time back to them, and to their children.  

The work we do, creating custom documentary quality videos of families, is a gift to each of us as Portraits that Move filmmakers. As we enter into the holiday season, I look forward to giving that gift to all of you. 

What a Difference a Year Makes

Now that holiday card season is upon us and we are shooting and scheduling holiday video cards and beginning to book Signature Portrait videos for holiday gifts, we at Portraits that Move are enjoying one of our favorite annual traditions.  We are spending quality time with our clients, the members of our growing Portraits that Move family.

What joy it is to make documenting your families an annual tradition.  And what amazing and beautiful changes we witness from behind the camera.  Whether it is bringing a new baby into the family, starting a new school, or sharing the observations, emotions, dreams and ideas that your children have this year, at this moment, documenting your family as you travel through life is one of the truest blessings we know.

Thank you to all of you who come to us and come back to us to document this time in your children's lives and your own.  We want you to know that, above all, we understand the trust that you put in us to reflect back to you the magic and beauty of your family as it is in this moment.  And we treasure this gift you give to us as we know you treasure the gift of your Portraits that Move family films.

We have some Holiday Video Shoot slots remaining.  Book yours now, or contact us to schedule a Signature Portrait shoot.

On the Celebration of Getting Older

I had a birthday this week! I love my birthday because I love celebration, friends, family, and of course, cake. I have so much to celebrate this year, my son is flourishing, my work is going well and I have a new, incredible love in my life.

I also have had some health struggles this year, which have, for now, gone away. After a rough summer with them, I am left feeling appreciative for feeling better and excited for another new year. I have a deep and profound gratitude for more time on the planet with those I love. I look at getting older as a privilege and as something that is exciting. 

I already wrote about the wonderful surprise party I had a couple weeks ago. The celebrating did not stop there!  I had an amazing vegan dinner with my family last week and on the actual day- a romantic dinner with my cherished boyfriend.

Fortunately for me, my guy values documenting life just as much as I do. He often has a camera in his hand and savors the good moments of life. And luckily our dinner was no exception.

Having a birthday of course brings up things we constantly talk about at Portraits that Move; how short life is and how fast it goes by. We have a need to experience the moment and also to capture it. We love what we do and get excited about the opportunity to do it this time of year.

Halloween is coming up and just beyond it, the holiday season. We are doing our holiday work now, so that our clients will be ready for the season with their Portraits that Move Video Holiday Cards. They will have the image, the sounds, the movement, the documentation of their beautiful families.

I have gratitude to you for allowing this work to be part of my life. I celebrate that and now is the season that I get to help you celebrate your family.

We are hosting two Holiday Video Card Shoot Dates: Saturday, October 15 (2 hour slots from 10:00 am - 4:00 pm) and Sunday, November 6 (2 hour slots from 10:00 am - 6:00 pm).

Complete the form below to get more information and to reserve your timeslot.

Add Movement to Your Holiday Cards

Time is moving more quickly than ever, Back to School season has shifted into the daily intense busy-ness that makes up our lives as parents, and the holidays are just around the corner. 

This year, our Portraits that Move team is dedicated to helping make your holiday season moving, in every sense of the word.  We want to make it as easy, and as enjoyable as possible for you to create and share the perfect holiday message for your family and to move through the season with no stress and plenty of celebration.

Our Portraits that Move video holiday card is the alternative to traditional holiday cards that you have been looking for.  No more stress over staging and snapping picture-perfect moments, no more distilling the growth and energy and excitement of an entire year into a single image or a collage that never feels complete.  With our video holiday cards, your friends and family can hear and see your kids as they really are, a moving holiday greeting, and a gift to everyone on your mailing list.

To make things even easier, for our clients who live in and around NYC, we will be hosting two days of Holiday Card Video Sessions, starting at $600.  Sign up now and get your entire holiday greeting taken care of, by us.  We film, we edit, and we deliver the link directly to you, ready to share.

These are our only dates for video holiday card filming and they fill up quickly, so reach out now to secure your place.

Video Holiday Card Sessions with Portraits that Move

Spots are limited, register now for your Video Holiday Card Session

Saturday, October 15

TIME: 10am - 4pm (2 hour slots)
PLACE: YOUR HOME

Sunday, November 6

TIME: 10AM- 6PM (2 HOUR SLOTS)

PLACE: YOUR HOME