Get in front of the camera.

Let your family members take photos of you.

Be in the photos with your children and grandchildren.

Be the relative whose face hangs on the walls of those they love.

Be the relative who puts the faces of those you love on your walls.

Dust off your DSLR, film camera, or get yourself some disposable film cameras. Phone photos will never be the same.

Okay, that’s more than one request. You get it. I took my own advice last year and took my cameras everywhere, which I stopped doing somewhere along the line.

I bought cheap disposable underwater cameras for the pool last summer. I took expensive film out West. I used my digital cameras for everything and nothing at all, capturing moments in time just as they were.

I don’t know if my children will be thankful, but I know the photographs we have of my mom, my grandparents, and great-grandparents are some of the things I treasure most.

Here is a selection of my very faves.