"In my family, Christmas isn't just a holiday It's an obsession. And my mother? She's the matriarch of mistletoe. Every December, our home transformed into a living snow globe. We didn't just buy ornaments, we made them. We didn't watch Christmas movies, we lived them. We'd cut down our own trees, hand-string popcorn garlands and spend full afternoons debating the correct angle of the angel on top of the tree. But nestled inside all that holiday joy was one tiny annual trauma: the family photo."
"This wasn't just a casual snap on the stairs. No, no. This was a professional photoshoot. With outfits. And a booking. At Sears. For those unfamiliar with American suburban customs in the 1990s, let me set the scene. Once a year, children across the country were dressed in matching red sweaters, dragged to department stores and forced to smile in front of beige backdrops while a man named Gary who most definitely had a ponytail snapped away with a camera the size of a microwave."
An intensely festive family ritual turns the house into an elaborate holiday spectacle, with handmade ornaments, tree-cutting, and meticulous decoration. The mother orchestrates annual perfection, treating the family Christmas card like an art form with coordinated outfits, props, and strict grooming instructions. The obligatory professional Sears photoshoot becomes a yearly trauma: matching sweaters, a beige backdrop, and a ponytailed photographer named Gary taking microwave-sized-camera shots. Siblings react with tears and complaints while the father performs silly antics to provoke smiles. The mother micromanages poses and hair, stretching a single photoshoot into an emotionally draining, seemingly eternal event for the children.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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