Christmas Memories - Preserve Your Family's Christmas Memories
Memory... is the diary that we all carry about with us.
-Oscar Wilde, "The Importance of Being Earnest"
Keeping visual records in pictures is a long standing tradition in most families and can easily be done in two ways:
1. Get Your Family Together to Take the Perfect Christmas Picture
There is some squabbling about whether or not family Christmas pictures should be taken at home or whether the family should go to a professional photographer. What's the right answer? Both! You should take your family to a professional photographer to get a family Christmas picture made.
You can have everyone dress in their Christmas outfits and a photographer can capture that special Christmas and it's forever preserved for you and your loved ones. On the other hand, going to a professional photographer isn't cheap. So if you want other images of Christmas to save in your scrapbook or share with family, you'll have to learn how to take that perfect picture yourself.
With all of the user-friendly digital cameras available today, that won't be a difficult task. The functions on these cutting edge cameras can completely take away that weird glassy red-eyed look that we all hate.
You don't have to worry about making sure you've got the focus correct - most digital cameras have auto focus. Best of all, digital cameras don't cost anything for you to share with family or friends.
Just upload the photos into your computer, attach them in an email and off they go! You can instantly share. Not only that, but you can take the digital photos to your local film developer and have them printed onto gift items such as coffee mugs or calendars. Every grandparent loves photos of the grandchildren.
You can have family members dress in opposite colors - the men in red and the women in white. Or you can use contrasting shirts and pants. Using a digital camera to take the picture, that's the easy part, but as everyone knows, getting the family to sit still long enough (and not make animal faces at the lens) while trying to take a photo can seem like a Herculean task. How can you get around that?
Don't take the photo at your house. Take your Christmas photos elsewhere, like outside. Let your kids do what comes naturally. Laugh and have fun playing. Shots that aren't posed make some of the best Christmas photos.
You can also go to area businesses for your Christmas pictures. Since businesses are looking to pull in the Christmas shoppers before, during and after Thanksgiving, they're going to go ahead and set up displays featuring Christmas scenes.
You can get pictures of your family in front of these displays. If the business won't let you do that, head for a smaller shop and just ask. Most business owners are happy to oblige. The perfect Christmas picture is the one where everyone in the photo is wearing a genuine smile and the camera has captured the true beauty of the moment.
2. Record Your Family's Memories With a Christmas Video
The images are taken, carefully labeled and dutifully stored away. Taking snapshots of your Christmas moments are a good idea, but they can't capture the animation, the sound of the holidays in real time. Making a Christmas video will not only give you years of enjoyment, but you can send a DVD of the video to family who couldn't make it in to celebrate the holiday with you.
When digital video recorders first hit the market, they were bulky in craftsmanship and they were expensive on top of that. Now, though, digital video recorders (camcorders) are affordable, lightweight and can easily be tucked away in a pocket to be pulled out. They're ready to go (many in less than two seconds) and they can get that moment you want to save captured. They're definitely a worthy investment.
These handy video recorders are compatible with computers. Once you capture the images, you can enhance them with fonts, background colors, online scrapbook pages and more.
You can share with your family and friends on all your social media sites and you can even digitally add Christmas music to the background. You can create virtual storybooks starring your family and they make great gifts even for the hard to please relative.
Unlike cameras, you don't have to leave out one family member since someone has to take the picture and unlike cameras, you won't get a blurred image of someone running to jump into the scene before the flash goes off.
With a video recorder, you can set it to record when you want it to record plus, with tripods, you can set it up in any room in your house. Make sure that whichever room you use has adequate lighting.
Make sure the room is neat and that any cups or plates from snacking aren't showing up in the background. Make sure your video recorder has an adequate battery supply. Always keep extras on hand during the holidays.
You can record each event for Christmas - from the visiting to the opening of gifts to the sharing of holiday meals. When you purchase a video recorder, you want to aim for the top of the line.
Get the best quality video recorder that you can find to save your Christmas holiday memories. Don't use your regular digital camera with video function because those are often grainy and out of focus.
With a video camera, you can also keep traditions alive. When recording your holiday memories, you can interview each family member and have them share their favorite holiday memory from both past and present Christmas celebrations. Have them talk about what traditions mean the most to them - this is a good way to pass those traditions down to the next generation. Enjoy!
