Holiday Portraits That Feel Like Christmas at Home

In home, porch side, tree farm, and town square holiday portraits designed around the way your family actually celebrates the season

There is something distinctly different about photographs made during the holidays because Christmas already carries so much visual memory with it. The front porch covered in cedar garland, the tree glowing in the living room, children bundled into wool coats, the annual trip to choose a Christmas tree, downtown storefronts illuminated after dark, grandparents arriving, familiar ornaments appearing from their boxes, and the particular warmth of a house when everyone finally comes inside from the cold all become part of how we remember a season of family life.

Holiday portraits have traditionally been associated with Christmas cards, and they certainly serve that purpose beautifully, but I think they become much more valuable when we stop treating them solely as photographs made for other people to receive in December.

I am Rebecca Pinkham Stevenson, founder and Creative Director of The Beaux & Arrows Collective, and my approach to holiday family photography is designed around creating something that feels beautiful enough for the Christmas card while remaining personal enough to become part of your family's history. Rather than requiring every family to visit the same artificial Christmas set, I offer holiday portraits in your home, porch side, at Christmas tree farms, and in beautifully decorated Maine town squares, allowing us to choose the environment that feels most naturally connected to your family.

Why photograph Christmas at home?

Because your home is already part of the story.

Children remember where the Christmas tree stood, which staircase was wrapped in garland, where stockings were hung, which window collected snow, and where everyone crowded together on Christmas morning. Parents spend years creating those traditions without necessarily realizing that the house itself is quietly becoming part of their children's memories.

An in home holiday portrait session allows us to preserve that environment while it still belongs to this particular chapter of your family.

We can photograph everyone beautifully gathered beside the tree, but we can also make photographs of children hanging ornaments, parents curled up with them on the sofa, stockings along the mantel, pajamas in the bedroom, cookies in the kitchen, pets wandering through the photographs, and all of the little interactions that would disappear if Christmas were recreated somewhere else.

Your house does not need to look like a magazine spread before I arrive. It simply needs to look like the place where your family celebrates Christmas, and I can help determine which rooms, windows, decorations, wardrobe choices, and areas of the home will photograph most beautifully.

What if you want something polished without having a photographer throughout your house?

Then your front porch may be one of the best places to begin.

Porch side Christmas portraits can feel wonderfully traditional while still being completely personal to your family because your own home becomes the backdrop. Evergreen garland, wreaths, bows, lanterns, baskets of winter greenery, stacked firewood, vintage sleds, beautiful planters, or a few carefully chosen seasonal elements can transform an entrance without creating the feeling of an elaborate Christmas set.

There is also something symbolically lovely about photographing a family at the entrance to the home they have built together.

These sessions work especially well for families who want polished holiday photographs without committing to a full indoor session, and they can be particularly practical when young children, grandparents, or pets are involved because everyone can remain close to home.

The finished portraits can feel festive enough for Christmas cards while remaining classic enough to frame throughout the winter.

What makes a Christmas tree farm session different?

Tree farms bring an entirely different kind of nostalgia because they already contain one of the most recognizable rituals of the holiday season.

Rows of evergreens provide beautiful natural structure, while winter coats, boots, scarves, wool, velvet, tartan, knits, and deeper seasonal colors make sense in the environment without requiring us to construct Christmas around you.

Rather than standing everyone beside a tree and asking for smiles, I prefer to use the farm as an environment in which the family can move. Children can wander between the trees, parents can walk together, little ones can be carried, siblings can explore, and the entire session can have the feeling of a family outing rather than a stationary portrait appointment.

For families who actually visit a tree farm every year, these photographs can become even more meaningful because we are documenting a tradition that already exists rather than inventing one for the camera.

What if you want something that feels like an old New England Christmas?

This is where Maine's decorated town squares, historic streets, storefronts, village greens, and downtown districts can become extraordinary.

Holiday portraits do not always need snow covered fields or evergreen forests. Historic architecture, brick sidewalks, wreath covered doors, lamp posts, shop windows, garland, twinkle lights, and the early darkness of December can create photographs that feel sophisticated, nostalgic, and unmistakably New England.

These sessions can be especially beautiful for families with older children or couples who want something more editorial than a traditional Christmas tree setting. Beautiful coats, tailored trousers, velvet dresses, wool skirts, leather gloves, boots, cashmere, and classic winter accessories can create a holiday portrait that feels almost cinematic without becoming costume like.

Instead of creating Christmas in a studio, we use the Christmas that is already happening around us.

Do holiday portraits have to include red and green?

Not at all, and frequently the most sophisticated holiday wardrobes do not.

Christmas can be suggested through texture and environment rather than literal color. Cream, camel, navy, chocolate, forest green, burgundy, charcoal, winter white, muted tartan, velvet, wool, cashmere, satin, corduroy, and beautiful outerwear can communicate the season while allowing the photographs to remain timeless.

If your home is already richly decorated, simpler clothing may photograph best because the environment is providing the holiday color. If we are working somewhere more neutral, wardrobe can carry more of the seasonal character.

What matters most is that the family looks coordinated without looking assigned, because the photograph should ultimately be about the people rather than demonstrating that everyone owns the same plaid shirt.

What if you have very young children?

Holiday sessions can be particularly wonderful with young children because Christmas gives them something to actually do.

Instead of repeatedly asking a toddler to look at the camera, we can ask her to find an ornament, look at the lights, carry a tiny tree, snuggle with Dad, help Mom hang something on the porch, search among the evergreens, or investigate whatever has caught her attention.

Children are considerably more interesting when they are allowed to be interested in something.

I will still create the photographs in which everyone is together and looking toward the camera, but I do not believe the entire gallery should depend upon children maintaining adult attention and expressions. Their excitement, distraction, movement, curiosity, and occasional complete refusal to participate are part of the age we are documenting.

Should grandparents be included?

Holiday portraits are one of my favorite opportunities to include them.

Christmas is inherently generational, and the photographs that seem like additions to the gallery now can become some of its most important images later. A grandmother helping a child decorate the tree, a grandfather holding a grandchild on the porch, three generations together in front of the family home, or simply grandparents standing beside the people who came after them creates a visual record that extends beyond the immediate family.

If everyone is already gathering for the holidays, we have an opportunity that can be surprisingly difficult to recreate at another time of year.

What about the family dog?

Bring the dog whenever the location allows it and doing so makes sense for your family.

Pets occupy an enormous place in family life and a frustratingly short place in family history, which makes their absence from photographs particularly noticeable later. An in home or porch side session is often the easiest way to incorporate pets because they remain in familiar surroundings, while outdoor locations can work beautifully for dogs who are comfortable traveling and being around other people.

They do not need to behave perfectly either. Sometimes the photograph of everyone laughing because the dog refused to cooperate becomes considerably more loved than the photograph we were attempting to make.

Are holiday portraits only useful for Christmas cards?

The Christmas card may be the immediate reason you schedule them, but it should not be the only thing the photographs are capable of becoming.

Holiday portraits can become framed photographs brought out with your Christmas decorations every year, small prints given to grandparents, albums documenting successive Christmases, ornaments, gifts, and eventually a visual chronology of your family's holiday traditions.

Imagine having an album containing ten Christmases in the same house, or watching your children grow through annual photographs on the same front porch.

Suddenly the value is not simply that you had a beautiful card in 2026. The value is that you created a record.

What if your house is not perfectly decorated yet?

It does not need to be.

In fact, I would rather work with a few intentional elements than fill every available surface simply because the photographs are Christmas photographs.

A beautiful tree, greenery, warm light, a wreath, a mantel, or one particularly lovely corner of your home may be enough. When needed, I can help think through the visual details beforehand so that the environment, clothing, decorations, and photography work together rather than compete with one another.

Holiday styling should support your family, not bury them underneath Christmas.

When should you schedule holiday portraits?

Earlier than most people think, particularly if the photographs are intended for Christmas cards or gifts.

Tree farms, outdoor locations, and town square sessions also require us to consider daylight, weather, seasonal decorations, public activity, and the increasingly early sunset as we move toward December. In home and porch side sessions offer more flexibility, but scheduling early gives you time to receive your photographs, design cards, order prints, and actually enjoy the process rather than turning it into another December deadline.

For families who love the look of a genuine Maine winter, later sessions can be extraordinary, but snow should be treated as a possibility rather than something any photographer can responsibly promise on a particular date.

What should holiday family portraits ultimately feel like?

They should feel like your Christmas, even when they are beautifully styled.

Some families celebrate Christmas in a historic house filled with greenery and candlelight, while others are happiest bundled together at a tree farm. Some want velvet dresses and beautifully tailored coats downtown, while others want bare feet, pajamas, children on the sofa, and the tree they decorated together.

There is no reason those families should all receive the same Christmas photographs.

My job is to understand which version belongs to you and then bring enough direction, composition, styling, light, and technical experience to make it beautiful without photographing away everything that made it yours in the first place.

Because twenty years from now, you may notice the extraordinary decorations and beautiful clothing, but you are much more likely to notice how small your child was standing beside that tree, the dog asleep near the fireplace, the house you once called home, your parents before they grew older, or the way everyone somehow fit together on that front step.

Christmas has a remarkable way of returning every year while never returning quite the same family.

That is what makes it worth photographing.

The Beaux & Arrows Collective
Holiday Family Portraits in Maine
In Home • Porch Side • Christmas Tree Farms • Town Squares

Your home. Your traditions. Your people. Your Christmas, beautifully preserved.