Christmas related: I have come to the conclusion that...

LOL...I struggle with scrapbooking Christmas in a huge way. I never know what pictures to take, I am generally kind of grinchy about the holiday and the photos I do take tend to be awful. I was really geared up to do a Christmas album this year but it fell flat due to a number of things. For the photos I did take, I dug out a very old Crate Paper Collection (snow day). It is generic, whimsical, and crazy bright. So far it has been working great with the photos I did take, but I know that next year I will be back in the same boat struggling to make the photos work with my supplies.

All my Christmas pics tend to be yellow, or if I am being poetic, golden.

And no one looks good. Especially me. Or I am stressy, trying to corral everyone. Last year we finally got everyone all in a bunch, pulled masks down for a quick pic and later my mom says to me, "Do you think we could do it again? I don't really like my neck."

If anyone has advice for better Christmas pics, I am all ears.

Try living in the Southern Hemisphere where it's summer at Christmastime, and 99% of the Christmas kits have frigging snowflakes! And most of them are dark drab colours. I get so excited when I find a warm weather themed Christmas kit.  

As a southern California dweller, I heartily agree! I love a bright, non-traditional color palette. I don't know why christmas = extreme winter weather. I don't need Santas in pool floaties but a blizzard of snowflakes doesn't seem right, either.

It reminds of the Hallmark Christmas movies. Every! Single! One! is set in a snowy location. Like only snow = christmas.

I would love to have some Santa's in shorts and a Santa suit tee shirt lol I live in an area of southern Ca that gets cold and wet Christmases (if we aren't in a drought year) but also we have had 85 degree sunny Christmases too. 

I would love to have embellishments about baking, lights drives, decorating the house and tree, outdoor decorations.

I like to use that for photos of my son sleeping. Maybe even for camping photos? Pictures of stars? I have a Christmas roller stamp with the word naughty I use for pages other than Christmas.

You know I find religious related stuff, which Christmas is to that extent, is geared toward a generic Protestant demographic. Christening instead of Baptism, no Advent or Lent, no Epiphany. Rare First Eucharist/Communion or Confirmation. Never the less I have found enough occasional nativity scene paper to do Epiphany, Advent I just tended to use purple and pink with candle embellies. I can use letter stickers to do O' Come Emanuel.

But I know what you mean. I recently bought about 25 rub on sheets, and I hate rub ons, on clearance because one saying was A Tree with all the Trimmings. My tree is exactly that and I can use that every year now until I am 90 years old.

We also do Feast of St Nick and I have to do my own thing for that too. I have found that many of my supplies can be manipulated to work but what we need is a program to customize our own stuff and order it for a cheap price!

As an atheist who celebrates secular Christmas, I'm all for including 'Advent' finally in Christmas lines. Advent calendars have exploded in popularity for young and old over the past decade. We all use the term, no matter our religious background. Get with the times, scrapbook industry! And add "behind today's window", "in my calendar", "so many calendars, so little time" sentiments. Diversify!

I'm another one sitting on the Grinchy bench regarding snow and snowflakes in Christmas/December lines. It's proper winter in December where I live but no snow. I'm surprised the snow theme is used and repeated so often as the industry is based in the US and the US has a significant chunk of the country not prone to snow in December (as evidenced in this very thread). I like more generic Christmas lines. Pinkfresh does colourful, non-snowy lines so well. Wish more companies would take note. Especially Crate Paper.

Paper Person was my fave for a different take on Christmas, even offering some Festivus references and full-on grumpiness. Alas, as a European customer, I'm no longer being catered to for physical products. It'd be nice if someone else picked up some of her vibe...

The manufacturers decided long ago to add pinks, lime green, etc. variations to the Christmas collections of patterned papers, and they haven’t worked well with my photos ever since (it started years ago). In their effort to be trendy and fresh, they just caused problems for a lot of scrappers. When I scrapbook, I use colors that reflect the clothing of the individuals in the photos, which (at Christmastime) tends to be the more traditional Christmas colors.

I think this is one reason why I get frustrated with collections. They almost never go with my photos. A few sheets from a collection will work, but buying the whole collection results in a lot of unused papers. I used to live near a great LSS. Now the closest LSS is far away, and I don’t like buying paper online, because the colors aren’t always true on the computer screen.

I am trying to work on my Disney album from 2017. We went at Christmastime. The Disney colors don’t work, and rarely do the Christmas collections. I am mainly using various papers from my stash, some Paper Wizard titles, and my Silhouette and Cricut.

Some like the non-traditional colors, but they have never worked for my photos. My family and I all refuse to wear pink or lime green (or whatever the non-traditional current color trend may be) for a Christmas photo.

A phrase like “Silent Night” would work well for night Christmas decorations (such as your home might have), Christmas carolers, or a photo of newly fallen snow at dusk, etc. However, we have almost never had snow for Christmas. Snow really isn’t common at Christmas for a large percentage of scrapbookers.

Here are some ideas for "silent night"....

A layout using a pic of...

Sunset
The night sky
Children looking out a window at the sky
An evening/night-time walk
Your house lit up with Christmas lights
Neighbour(hood) lit up with Christmas lights
Your tree lit up
Relaxing in front of the tree
Relaxing in front of a fire
Snow/snowfall
Child or pet napping
Nativity scene
Cookies and milk left for Santa
Midnight mass
Church during evening worship
A layout about the song Silent Night

Use silent night but add the words "not so" along with a pic of your child's Christmas concert or a pic of the aftermath of a family holiday dinner etc.

Not the most original ideas I know but I hope that helps some.

Missed this comment. I'd love some tips for what has worked for you. My daughter and husband went there December 2021. I found some metal dies on Aliexpress that are generic Disney related. So I can at least cut out mickey heads in various colors to go with the photos if that makes sense.