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Photography is everywhere during the holiday season, especially among families who want to preserve their memories of the season in pictures. I know my mom has plenty of video footage of my brother and me opening gifts on Christmas morning and many photos of me on Santa’s lap. This year I took Layla to the mall to see Santa, and I couldn’t believe the line to sit with the jolly guy. We waved from afar (Layla thinks Santa is scary, so I wouldn’t dare make her go near him).

This is also the time of year when family holiday cards with cute photos pop up on our kitchen table like paper flowers. And Picture People and Sears are packed with kids dressed in coordinating red and green outfits. And parents are snapping shots of their babies in front of lights and trees. And this is also the time of year when I feel most guilty about my empty, non-camera wielding hands.

Obviously my baby is my world, and I would love to save each moment like coins in a piggy bank. But I’m really bad about remembering to take out the digital camera, and even worse about using the expensive digital video camera my parents bought for me before my daughter was born (I think we have three short videos of her). Scrapbooking is definitely not my thing either. I just don’t think in pictures, and I feel horrible about it.

Luckily, my mom loves to take pictures and the flash on her camera is constantly blinking when she and my dad visit from Southern California. Thanks to her, we have (literally) hundreds of photos of Layla and a scrapbook of her first year. After every holiday she uploads the visual loot to her Kodak Easy Share website and sends me a link. So when we all went to San Francisco to celebrate the holidays this week, it was my mom who organized us in front of the tree in Union Square and captured an Italian tourist to take our picture. She and my dad took turns filming Layla as she tore into her gifts in a flurry of boxes and bows.

In all the happy squeals and chaos, I think I took three pictures of Layla ripping apart wrapping, but for the first time I didn’t feel guilty about leaving the camera on the shelf. I didn’t feel like I needed to take pictures, either. I smiled as I watched my baby enjoy the excitement of peeling off paper layers, of discovering something new. I held her in my lap as she unwrapped my gifts, too.

I waited for a quiet moment to give her the finger puppets I had been so excited about for weeks. We each held an end of the package, and Layla unraveled the gold and blue paper the way an apple peeler skims off the fruit’s skin. When she saw the tiny faces of the Nutcracker, Clara, the Sugar Plum Fairy, and the Rat Prince, her eyes widened and she breathed a tiny, “ooh!” She loved them, and I was happy. No camera could have captured that moment.

That night I took out my journal and wrote all of my impressions and memories of the day, like I always have. I don’t feel guilty anymore about forgetting the camera because I realize why I often do: the same lens that focuses the image of the subject also puts it at a distance. I feel removed from the joy and “magic” of the moment when I put myself behind the camera. For me, I would rather feel the warmth of my baby in my lap and have my hands unencumbered to roll each experience between my palms and hers, together … and after Layla falls asleep, I will save it all in my own handwriting, in my journal.