Pixiq

If your kitchen counter is anything like my kitchen counter this time of year, it’s a mess. The mail comes in through the back door and stalls on the edge of the island. Yet nestled within the bulk of screaming catalogs, there are a handful of handwritten envelopes from familiar addresses that stir moments of much-needed pause in the flurry of December.

Traditionally, holiday photo cards served to connect us – giving us a glimpse at the lives of our friends and family each year. Yet in a time when life documentary and photo sharing has become increasingly more prolific online thanks to Facebook, I can’t help but wonder about the value (and future) of the perfectly-posed, holiday portraits scattered on my kitchen counter. Is it worth the effort and expense to plan, pose, shoot, print, address and mail? For the second year, I’ve said “no.”

But is it art? A method of family branding? Are we lining everyone up with smiles and color-coordinated outfits to show that despite the highs and lows, we are essentially the same and life is good? Maybe. Or is it a form of visual fiction? I study these holiday-inspired portraits of near perfection and I can’t help but whisper…

It’s a little bit boring.

What would intrigue me are the curious moments and odd expressions that precede and follow the pose. I find that the beauty of real life is most often revealed in the honesty of our snapshots – the ones that typically don’t get printed and mailed, yet find their home among comments and tags online. It makes me smile to imagine a collection of less-than-perfect holiday photo cards on my counter revealing moments that expose the beautiful truth of our lives. Kids with rumbled hair and too-short pants. An unexpected expression. Maybe even a messy kitchen counter in the background. Is it unrealistic to think we might grow comfortable enough with the non-fiction-ness of our lives to celebrate these moments of imperfection enough to print, address, and mail them? Perhaps. But the more comfortable we get at exposing the authenticity of our lives daily online, the less demand we have to print the perfect holiday portrait.