For my work Christmas party last year, we were all invited to bring in a picture of ourselves as children doing something seasonal, for a game of match-the-employee-to-the-childhood-photo. Unsurprisingly, there were a lot of Santa pictures in the mix. What was unexpected, though, was a strange trend that I noticed – of the Santa pictures on the board, very few showed good, sweet children smiling at the camera from Santa’s lap. Instead, most people brought in a picture of a screaming kid trying to wriggle away from a weary St. Nick.

Why, when a bunch of adults went to their parents and requested a festive picture, did they all turn up with photos of themselves hollering and crying? Did none of us ever take normal pictures with Santa? I don’t think that’s the case. No, it seems that somewhere along the line, either my coworkers or -- more likely -- their parents sorted through a stack of old Santa pictures and deemed that the best ones, the ones worth keeping, were the ones where the tiny versions of their adult children look like complete and absolute brats.

Or, more accurately, I think, they picked the pictures where their kids didn’t look unrealistically perfect. They picked the pictures where their kids looked like themselves, skinned knees, runny noses, temper tantrums, and all. And my coworkers themselves, as adults looking back at pictures of themselves pushing a tired old man in the face, picked those pictures over their other options, too. They all preferred a “bad” Santa picture to a “good” one.

There’s something undeniably endearing about a picture of a feisty child trying to run away from a department store Santa. Those photos capture the reality of the situation: their parents dress them up, even buy special outfits just for the occasion, and yet kids can’t be forced to be people they’re not. And that’s what those pictures capture -- children in a moment as they truly are, with their personalities on full display for the world.

That’s what we want our pictures to capture, isn’t it -- our lives as they are? Sure, we may want our photographs to capture the prettiest version of the truth, but we want to have them to look back on, to help us remember how things were. I suspect that’s why my coworkers’ parents liked those pictures so much; at the time it was probably just annoying that their little angels wouldn’t cooperate and smile, but that photograph now serves as a visual reminder of exactly who that child was.

Most of the time, our favorite photographs aren’t going to show the imperfections that a screaming Santa picture will, but it’s a reminder that many of our best pictures won’t be the idealized ones. Our flaws are a large part of who we are, and it’s not always bad when those show up in our pictures. I, for example, have a bit of an underbite when I grin. Truth is, I hate it -- but it only shows up in pictures where I’m really happy, because usually I don’t smile that enthusiastically. So sure, when I see it make an appearance in a photo, I wince, but usually the emotion in picture makes up for it, and as a result, I’ve printed up quite a few pictures with that underbite in them. None of us are perfect, and it’s ok for our photos, and even a custom oil painting, to acknowledge that fact.