Every family has one.
The Santa photo where somebody is crying. Usually the baby. Occasionally Santa.
It's one of the few traditions most of us repeat every single year without question. Book the slot, dress them up, stand in line, pray for a smile. Then the photo comes home and… goes where, exactly?
Before we get to that, a little history.
Where the Santa photo began
Santa has been greeting children in shops for well over a century. The first department store Santa is usually credited to James Edgar, who dressed up as Santa at his store in Brockton, Massachusetts, back in 1890. Children travelled from all over to see him, and the idea spread quickly.
The photo came later. In 1943, a newspaper photographer in Seattle named Arthur French noticed a long line of children waiting to see Santa at the Frederick & Nelson department store across the street. His idea was simple: let families leave with a keepsake.
Those early Santa photos were printed and slipped into little cardboard frames, often stamped with the year and a cheery Christmas message. They were made to be kept, and given to grandparents.
Eighty-odd years later, Santa has swapped the snow for shopping centres (and, here in Australia, a very warm velvet suit in December). But the tradition is the same. A child, a big red chair, and a moment you'll want to remember.
Why we love them so much
On its own, one Santa photo is sweet.
Lined up together, they're something else entirely.
You see the baby who slept through the whole thing. The toddler who screamed. The five-year-old with a very specific list. The ten-year-old who only came along for their little sister.
It's your family growing up, measured in Decembers. Same chair, same red suit, a little bit taller every year.
That's what makes them worth keeping. Not one photo. The whole collection.
So where do they all go?
If we're honest, they end up everywhere.
In the kitchen drawer, still in the cardboard frame. On the fridge, slowly fading. In an email with a download link that expired in 2021. In Nana's photo cabinet, because she always buys a copy.
The tradition is lovingly repeated every year. The photos just never get a home.
How to give your Santa photos a home
This doesn't need to be a big project. One afternoon is plenty.
- Gather what you've got. Check the drawers, the fridge and your inbox for old digital downloads. Ask the grandparents too. They've often kept copies.
- Print the digital ones. Standard 4x6 prints are perfect. Start with the ones you'd be heartbroken to lose.
- Give each year a page. Pop the Santa photo in first, then add a few more from that Christmas: the morning, the lunch, the mess.
- Write the little things down. The year, their age, what they asked Santa for. You think you'll remember. You won't.
- Keep the extras. Letters to Santa, a gift tag in Grandma's handwriting, the drawing they did for the tree. These deserve a spot too.
- Add to it every December. That's the whole point. A tradition you repeat deserves an album you return to.
Where ours live
We made the CHRISTMAS Album for exactly this.
It's wrapped in maroon linen with Merry Little Moments embossed in gold, and holds up to 320 photos across 40 self-adhesive pages. No glue, no photo corners. There's an envelope pocket at the back for letters to Santa and all those little extras, and it all lives in a matching keepsake box so it stays protected between Christmases.
It's a limited edition, and it's the kind of album you'll actually want to leave out on the coffee table when the tree goes up.
One album. Every Christmas. Starting with this year's Santa photo.
Hanna x
