18 Christmas Family Photo Outfits for Grandmas Over 50

You and every grandchild in the row wear red and black squares about the size of your palm. That big check is the good news.

Large plaid reads clean in photos. Tiny checks and thin stripes are the ones to avoid, because cameras handle them badly.

The size is where it goes wrong. Many pajama tops run short, and you won't be standing. You'll be cross-legged on the rug with a toddler climbing into your lap.

Order one size up from your daytime size. When the box arrives, sit on the floor and reach for something in front of you. If skin shows between the top and the waistband, the top is too short.

A camera held at kid height finds that gap first.

Check the buttons too, especially if your fingers are stiff in the morning. A pullover top, or one with big buttons, saves you from fumbling with small flannel ones before breakfast.

Cherry-red pajamas, and over them a robe in cream or oatmeal waffle knit with a shawl collar, tied loosely at the side. This is your move when the family has already voted for bright red.

Bright red bounces color onto your skin in photos. A cream collar between your chin and the red keeps that color a step away from your face.

You're still in the family set, because the red shows down the front and all the way to your ankles.

Choose waffle or another textured knit over smooth cotton. Plain white goes flat on camera, and texture gives the cream some shadow.

The robe does two more jobs nobody needs to know about. It covers your upper arms, and it falls straight past your middle.

Tie it at the side. A bow centered at your waist puts a knot of fabric exactly where you'd rather the camera didn't look.

The grandchildren are in reindeer and candy canes. You're in plain pine green, long sleeves and wide legs, the same green that runs through their print. You belong to the set, and you look like a woman who picked her own clothes.

Some family photographers plan for only one person in a pattern. Matching print pajamas break that rule on purpose, and a whole row of print can look busy. One grown-up in a solid gives the eye a place to rest.

If a reindeer top on you feels like dressing too young, this is also your way out.

To find your color, lay the kids' pajamas flat in daylight. Ignore the background, which is usually white or cream. Pick the deepest color in the print, often a green, navy or burgundy, and match that.

Then tell the organizer before anything gets ordered: "I'll match the green in the kids' set, so get me the solid." It's one less size for them to guess.

You wear a knee-length camel coat open over a ribbed cream turtleneck, with dark brown pants and brown leather boots. It looks calm and expensive, and it has one trap.

Head to toe in pale beige, you can fade into a snowy yard or a pale porch. The dark pants and boots fix half of that.

The other half is a scarf at your face in the family's main color. Burgundy, forest green or navy, looped once. Keep the cream turtleneck ribbed, too, because ribbing holds up on camera where flat white goes blank.

Test the coat on a porch step before the day. Sit down in it, buttoned. If it pulls across your hips in long creases, wear it open for the photo, which also gives you one long line down the front.

A camel coat that's mostly wool is worth buying even if this photo is the reason. You'll put it on every winter after.

Pull on a matte navy quilted vest that ends at mid-thigh, over a plum turtleneck with full sleeves. Add black pants and lace-up duck boots with deep tread.

This one is about warmth first. As skin ages, the fat layer under it thins, and that makes it harder to stay warm, according to the National Library of Medicine.

A photo session can mean twenty minutes on a cold lawn while someone wrangles a three-year-old. The vest keeps your core warm and leaves your arms free to hold the baby.

The long vest also runs a straight line from collar to thigh. It skims a middle that years of walking never shifted.

Plum near your face gives you color with none of the bright-red worry.

On your feet, look for sturdy soles and roomy toes. Arthritis UK suggests both for anyone with sore joints, and icy porch steps make the case on their own.

A big square of deep red and green tartan wool, folded into a triangle and wrapped over the shoulders. Under it, a black ribbed turtleneck, black straight pants and black leather ankle boots.

This is your outfit if you want to be the one in the pattern. Claim it early in the family planning. Two big plaids side by side fight each other, while one tartan in a row of solids looks deliberate.

The wrap covers your arms and your middle. You can also tuck your hands into its folds, which settles the old question of what to do with them.

A very small woman holding a squirmy child should pass on this one. A blanket wrap is a lot of wool, and it slides.

If you wear it, pin it at one shoulder with a large kilt pin or brooch so it stays put when you bend.

Keep the black underneath ribbed. Smooth black goes flat on camera, and the rib gives it depth.

A rust knit tunic, dark brown pull-on pants, cognac leather ankle boots and a silver and turquoise necklace, on a patio under a string of lights. Not every family photo has snow in it.

If you spend Christmas in Arizona or New Mexico, or anywhere the afternoon hits 70, the coastal-grandma look of white linen and navy stripes may not feel like you. Rust, terracotta, turquoise and silver come from the ground you're standing on.

Rust is deep enough to stay clear of the cast that bright orange throws. If you love bright orange, keep it to a small accent, like a bead in the necklace.

Length matters if you're short. A tunic that hits mid-thigh on a tall woman can swallow you whole. Look for one that ends just below the hip bone.

Skip three-quarter sleeves. A light knit with full sleeves covers your arms and won't make you hot in the sun.

Emerald jersey, wrapped and tied at the side of the waist, midi length, long sleeves. Sheer black tights and black pumps with a low block heel, and you're standing on the second step of the staircase.

Emerald looks rich beside auburn, copper and silver hair. In a family row it sits easily next to red, burgundy, navy and gold.

The wrap makes a V at the neck and a diagonal across your middle. Pick a jersey with real weight to it. Thin, shiny jersey clings to every ridge, and the diagonal stops helping.

Spending the morning on the floor with a toddler? Pass on this one. Wrap dresses gape and ride up when you sit low, so take the chair or choose pants.

On the stairs, put one foot a step higher than the other. The skirt falls straight, your hips turn a little, and the photographer below you sees a longer line.

When the photographer at a studio session asks for dressy, reach for a fitted black velvet blazer over an ivory silk shell. Black wide-leg crepe pants and black leather loafers finish it.

Solid black can go flat in photos. Velvet gets around that, because its raised surface, called the pile, catches light and throws shadow. Your black has depth. Ivory at the neckline keeps it from closing in around your face.

Everything here rides on fit. A blazer bought for the body you had ten years ago is what makes a woman look dowdy in a good jacket.

Put it on and check three things. The shoulder seam sits on the end of your shoulder bone. You can button it while seated without an X of strain across the front. The sleeve stops at your wrist bone.

If only the sleeves are wrong, that's worth paying a tailor for. If the shoulders are wrong, keep looking.

A blouse in garnet, the red of a dark cherry, with a soft tie at the neck. Wide black pull-on pants that pool a little over the shoe, and black ankle boots.

To wear red without the color cast, go two shades deeper than Santa. Garnet, burgundy and wine keep the bright-red tint off your skin. If the family is in bright red, garnet still reads as red in the row.

Look at the front of the blouse before you buy it. A column of tiny silk buttons is hard on stiff fingers. A pullover style with a keyhole or a tie at the neck is easier, and the tie softens the neckline.

Wear it out, untucked. If you want a waist, tuck just the front loosely and let the back hang.

The pants matter as much as the blouse. An elastic back waist lets you sit on the floor, stand on the stairs and eat dinner without a single thought about your stomach. Wide legs fold neatly when you sit cross-legged.

A knee-length ribbed knit dress in sapphire blue, opaque black tights and tall black boots with a flat or low heel. It's dressy, it's warm, and you can get up off the floor in it.

Sapphire looks clear beside silver, white and blond hair, and it holds its own next to the family's reds and greens. The rib gives a solid color the texture it needs on camera.

Knit dresses have one test, and you do it standing sideways in good light. Look at your middle. If the rib stretches open there or clings under your belly, move to a thicker rib or an A-line shape that falls away from the waist.

If you're short, tights and boots in the same black run your leg straight into the shoe. That buys you a little height in a row of grown children who passed you years ago.

A warm family palette calls for a mustard fine-rib turtleneck with chocolate brown corduroy straight pants and cognac leather loafers.

Photo stylist Melissa Grindstaff suggests building a palette from two main colors and two neutrals, like mustard and green with ivory and brown.

It also helps to mix textures inside a color family, like velvet, corduroy and chunky knits. Your corduroy and rib do that job while the grandkids wear the green.

Mustard is the color to test before you commit. Stand at a window in daylight and hold it under your chin. If the shadows under your eyes look darker, or your skin looks tired, take the green and let a daughter wear the mustard.

That test matters more if a medication leaves you puffy under the eyes, or if your skin has gone paler over the years. The color closest to your face has to be on your side.

A navy knit top, navy straight pants and navy low ankle boots, with a long camel cardigan falling open to mid-thigh. One color from neck to toe, and a second one framing it.

This is the outfit for a short, curvy woman, or anyone whose weight settled at the middle and stayed. Unbroken navy makes you one long shape. The open cardigan draws two vertical lines down your front.

If black looks flat on you in pictures, navy is the dark color to lean on. It still slims, and it plays well with cream, burgundy and green.

Buy the cardigan in a weight that hangs. A thin one clings to your hips and sags at the pockets.

Before the photo, empty those pockets. Phones and keys left in the pockets leave bulges, and on a long cardigan they drag the whole front out of line.

Picture a woman with a full head of silver in a charcoal ribbed sweater, charcoal pants and black ankle boots, with a teal silk scarf knotted loosely at her throat.

Deep gray stands in for flat black. Silver hair over gray clothes, though, can melt into a gray December afternoon. The teal at your neck pulls your face forward.

Gray hair often grows in thicker, coarser and less smooth, says Dr. Antonella Tosti, a dermatology professor at the University of Miami. Next to all that texture, a smooth silk scarf gives the camera one clean surface right under your face.

Teal suits silver hair and coordinates with navy, green and burgundy palettes. If the family's colors run warm, swap in a rust or mustard scarf and keep the gray.

Dark indigo jeans with no fading and no rips, a plum knit tunic ending at the hip, black suede booties and one chunky necklace in gold or silver. If the photographer said "casual," this is plenty.

You may wonder whether jeans look too casual next to everyone. They hold up fine if they're dark, one even color top to bottom, and cut for the body you have now.

That last part is where frumpy usually comes from: clothes that fit a different body. Get the fit right first.

Then add one thing you chose on purpose. A belt, a good shoe, a necklace. One. Three of them is where overdone starts.

For floor time, think about jeggings, which are leggings made to look like jeans. In a dark wash under a tunic, nobody can tell, and you can sit cross-legged without a waistband cutting in.

Keep the tunic solid if the family is wearing any pattern. Plain plum lets the necklace carry the outfit.

The most comfortable outfit here doesn't look it: a soft burgundy knit with a loose cowl neck, black ponte pull-on pants with an elastic waist, and black leather sneakers.

Ponte is a thick, smooth double knit. It holds a crease like tailored pants and stretches like leggings, with no zipper or button for stiff fingers. Arthritis UK suggests elastic waists for exactly that reason.

The cowl does the work at the top. It drapes over the neck, softens a jawline that's changed, and puts a fold of deep color right under your chin.

If your usual light makeup looks washed out in photos, deep color at the collar gives your face some of that color back.

Burgundy fits almost any Christmas palette. It reads as red next to red and sits easily beside green, navy and camel.

On a small woman, a huge cowl eats you. Look for a cowl that sits about a hand's width below your chin.

When the family is doing white tops and jeans, wear an ivory cable-knit sweater, indigo wide-leg pants in soft denim or twill, and tan suede ankle boots.

A whole row in white and denim tips into matchy-matchy fast. You stay inside the scheme by moving both pieces one step.

Ivory in place of white, with cables for shadow. Wide indigo pants in place of the same jeans as everyone else.

Light colors and grandchildren are a risky mix. Chocolate thumbs, glitter from the craft table, a candy cane leaned against your shoulder. A cable knit hides small marks better than a smooth top does. Bring a lint roller and a damp cloth anyway.

Watch the photographer line everyone up. Alternating colors straight down a row, like blue, white, blue, white, can be distracting. If you see that happening, offer to swap places so the darker clothes cluster together.

A deep green velvet top with long sleeves and a soft scoop neck. Black straight-leg pants with some stretch, and black ankle boots with a block heel about two inches high. If you buy one outfit for this photo, buy this one.

It goes with nearly any color scheme your family picks. Deep green sits beside red, burgundy, navy, camel, cream, gold and plaid without fighting any of them.

If the family goes red, you're the green that makes the row look like Christmas. If they go navy and cream, you're the jewel tone that warms it up. Your black pants are the anchor color, the shared neutral that ties a group together.

It also clears the camera traps. Deep green spares you the bright-red question entirely. The velvet pile catches light, so the top never goes flat. Long sleeves cover your arms.

Now the floor. Look for stretch velvet, which has a little spandex in it, so you can lift your arms for a grandchild without the hem riding up to your ribs.

Stretch in the pants lets you sit cross-legged, kneel or perch on a stair.

The block heel gives you some height on the stairs and stays steady on a rug, where a thin heel wobbles.

Pick a top long enough to cover the waistband when you sit. Try that at home before the tags come off.