On May 30, 1868, a few thousand people walked into a Virginia cemetery and laid flowers on the graves of strangers — on the same day, in the same place, on a promise to do it again next year.
That walk became Decoration Day, which became Memorial Day, which became the unofficial start of summer. Somewhere in the drift from cemetery to cookout, the original idea of the holiday quietly stayed intact: a specific date, a specific place, a refusal to forget.
This is a post about taking a picture. Stay with me.
Decoration Day Was an Annual Visit
In May 1868, Major General John A. Logan — head of the Grand Army of the Republic — issued General Order No. 11, establishing a day “for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land.”
The first national observance was held on May 30, 1868, at Arlington National Cemetery. Children from a soldiers’ orphanage walked the rows, laying flowers and small flags on each grave. James A. Garfield spoke. The Gettysburg Address was recited.
What’s striking about Logan’s order — what makes it feel modern — is the simplicity of the ask. Go to the place. Lay the flower. Come back next year.
The whole holiday is a ritualized annual visit.
Memory Doesn’t Survive on Its Own
We tend to think of memory as something that happens automatically — stored in our heads, retrieved when we want it. It isn’t. Memory is a thing we do, on purpose, on a schedule.
Every culture that has ever existed has built repeating, dated rituals around the act of not forgetting: graves visited, candles lit, names read aloud, photos pulled down off the shelf, songs sung at the same table every year.
Memorial Day exists because the people who built it understood that without the ritual, the names go.
This essay is not going to pretend that the photograph at your Memorial Day cookout is the same thing as a name carved in marble. It isn’t. But the impulse that built the marble is the same impulse that should make you put down the spatula, hand the phone to your nephew, and stand in the frame.
Memorial Day asks us not to forget specific people. The photograph is how we keep that promise for the ones we still have.
The Memorial Day Photo Almost No Family Takes
Here’s what families do this weekend. They gather. Backyards, beaches, lake houses, picnic tables, the same patch of grass in the same park. Aunt Linda is there. So is the grandfather who still grills in long sleeves. So are the kids who fly in for one of maybe two weekends a year.
Here’s what almost no family does. They don’t photograph the gathering with any intention. There’s the candid of the dog with a hot dog. There’s the blurry one of the kids in the pool. There’s the cousin who took a selfie nobody else is in.
There is, almost never, the one annual frame — everyone, in the same spot, on the same date, every year.
That photo is the small private version of what the holiday is asking of you anyway.
Same Backyard, Every Year
The setup is the same as any tradition that sticks. The point is the predictability:
- Pick the spot now. The deck steps. The picnic table. The garden where dad parks the cooler. Choose once, photograph it forever.
- Pick the photographer now. Niece with the phone, tripod, friendly neighbor — anyone who isn’t also in the frame.
- Take it before the food, not after. Everyone is dressed, sober, and not yet covered in barbecue sauce. The window is twenty minutes long.
- Get in the photo. No “I’ll just take it of you guys.” The whole point is the row, and the row needs you in it.
- Make it the same shot. Same framing, same group, same spot. The magic isn’t any one frame. It’s the comparison between this year’s and last year’s.
If grandpa lives far away, FaceTime him in and screenshot the call. The photo doesn’t have to be perfect. It has to exist.
The Family Photo Year, Bookended
Memorial Day to Christmas Eve is roughly seven months. For most American families, those seven months contain exactly one intentional, full-family photograph — the Christmas card.
That’s not a lot. Especially when you think about who’s in the frame, and who might not be next year.
If you start an annual Memorial Day photo tradition now, you’ve put a stake in the other end of the year. Two natural endpoints. Two dated, predictable, fully-attended frames. A real beginning and a real end to your family’s photographed year, instead of a single December scramble.
At the December end of that arc, we run something we call the 13 Santa Challenge. Thirteen Santas. Thirteen photos. Thirteen visits to the people in the red suits between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve. Each one gets photographed. Each year’s set joins the wall.
The Santa is the excuse. The photograph is the point. (And if it sounds suspiciously like the same logic Logan was applying to flowers and cemeteries — visit the place, mark the date, do it again next year — that’s because it is.)
Memorial Day is one bookend. The Santa visits are the other. The thing they share is the refusal to let a year pass without showing up on purpose.
One Last Thing
Twenty years from now, someone in your family will scroll back through old photos looking for a face they can’t see in person anymore. They will not be looking for the candid of the dog. They will be looking for the frame where everyone was there.
So this Monday, before the burgers come off the grill, do the small brave thing. Set the timer. Stand in the frame. Don’t apologize for your hair or the apron.
Get everyone in the picture. The whole point of this holiday is what gets remembered.
Now Show Us Yours
When you take this year’s Memorial Day photo, send it our way.
Drop it in the comments below, or tag @13santachallenge when you share it on social. We’re collecting Memorial Day frames from families building the same tradition — bookend by bookend, year by year, until the row is long enough to be the thing your grandkids fight over someday.
Sources and further reading:
- Major General John A. Logan, General Order No. 11 (“Memorial Day Order”), Grand Army of the Republic, May 5, 1868. Via the National Cemetery Administration.
- “Memorial Day History,” National Cemetery Administration, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
- Jonathan Soffer, “The Nation’s Sacrifice: The Origins and Evolution of Memorial Day,” U.S. National Archives Prologue blog (May 24, 2018).
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