13 Santa Challenge

You are closer to next December than you think.

It’s May 20. The day after Thanksgiving — the day the 13 Santa Challenge officially starts — is 191 days away. Which sounds like a lot. (It is a lot. It’s almost two trimesters.) But here’s the thing about a tradition built on photographs: the work isn’t done in December. It’s done in the 191 days before December, when nobody is thinking about Santa.

In a now-classic Scary Mommy essay, writer Colleen Dilthey Thomas describes sitting on Santa’s lap for the 43rd year in a row — alongside her three siblings, now all grown, all with kids of their own. What started as a single chubby-cheeked baby photo in 1979 turned, over four decades, into something her parents almost certainly didn’t set out to build. It became a row. And the row is the thing.

You don’t build a row in one December. You build it in May.

The challenge is 13 photos. The tradition is the wall.

The 13 Santa Challenge is simple: thirteen Santas, thirteen photos, between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve. Mall Santas. Library Santas. The one at the tree farm. The one your neighbor’s husband does for the block party in a borrowed beard. You visit, you photograph, you write down the date and the location, and you save it.

Do that once and you have a nice December. Do it for ten years in a row and you have something else entirely — a time capsule of your kids’ faces aging in tiny, dated, consistent increments. The same red suit. The same kid. A slightly different inch every winter.

What your kids will sit and look at in 2046 is not any individual frame. It’s the row.

What 191 days actually buys you

Here’s the funny thing about treating December as a row instead of a scramble: the long lead time stops being a “wait” and starts being an asset. You’re not behind. You’re early. And early is when most of the real work happens.

Things that get easier when you start in May:

• Print last year’s photos. If you only ever take the Santa pictures and never print them, the row doesn’t exist yet — it’s just camera roll clutter. Pick the 13 from last December and put them somewhere your kids can actually see them. (Fridge, hallway, photo book — pick one and do it this week.)
• Scout this year’s Santas. Tree-lighting Santas, charity events, holiday markets, the firehouse pancake breakfast — most of these get announced in October, and most parents find out the morning of. Start a note on your phone now. Add to it whenever you stumble on one.
• Pick the visual anchor. The Allison Tate essay “The Mom Stays in the Picture” is about being in the frame at all — the very first hurdle. Once you’re past that, the small visual continuity decisions (the red sweater, dad’s flannel, the kid’s holiday turtleneck) make the row read as a row instead of thirteen random photos. Decide the anchor in May. December gets quieter.
• Talk to the teenager. If you have a kid old enough to roll their eyes at this, the conversation is easier in May than in December. (May has no Santa pressure. May has iced coffee.)
• Block the calendar in pencil. Pick three or four December weekends now and write “Santa visits” on the family calendar. Even if it changes, the slot exists.

None of this is December work. All of it is May work.

The boring math

Thirteen photos, twenty-eight days between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve. That’s about one every other day, give or take. Which sounds manageable until somebody catches a flu, the in-laws come into town, and the school concert eats a Tuesday.

The 191 days are the buffer. They’re the part of the tradition that nobody photographs but everybody benefits from. The Santa visits are the visible part of the iceberg. May is the rest of it.

A note for the families just starting

If this is year one for you — there is no row yet. There is no wall. There is just a blank stretch of refrigerator and a vague intention. That’s completely fine. Every 43-year tradition was, at some point, a 1-year tradition. The Gray brothers in PetaPixel’s profile — 34 years of brother-on-Santa-on-brother photos — started with one small boy, one Santa, and one parent who decided to do it again the next year.

The only difference between a one-off and a row is whether you do it again.

Mark the date

November 27. Put it in the family calendar now, while you’re thinking about it. Then put it out of your mind until October, when you’ll start scouting Santas — because you wrote yourself a note in May.

The row starts with the second photo. Get the first one ready.