The Shield family of Brattleboro posed for its first Christmas card photo (bottom) in 1969 and, 55 years later, the most recent (top) at its matriarch’s 90th birthday on Jan. 6, 2024. Photo by Kevin O’Connor/VTDiggerFor Elaine Shield, the lightbulb — make that flashbulb — moment came when she first eyed a Christmas card picturing a cousin’s family in 1969.That’s when the now 90-year-old Vermonter and her husband, Paul, decided to set up a photo with their five squirming children and sent out the resulting black-and-white (pouting newborn front and center) for the holidays.The Brattleboro couple would soon have one more baby, then see all six youngsters grow up and fly the nest, only to circle back with spouses, a dozen grandchildren (two with their own spouses) and one great-grandchild and counting.Despite the death of its patriarch in 2010, the family nonetheless has endured.So has its 55-year Christmas card tradition.“It just keeps on going,” said Elaine, who’s seen cameras replaced by cellphones, film processing erased by Photoshop and stamps that once cost six pennies rise to 73 cents.Married in 1957, she and her husband welcomed Anne in 1958, Paul Jr. in 1960, Bill in 1961, Joe in 1962 and Frank in 1969 — the same year they mailed their first season’s greeting with the help of several relatives “trying to get the little ones to focus,” according to Elaine’s sister Kathleen Fleming, who has snapped many of the subsequent photos.Dan, the sixth and final child, debuted in 1973. Soon his older siblings began going away to college and getting married. But everyone always returned home for the annual portrait.Take 1992, when Dan’s high school championship football game was set for the same day as his eldest brother’s nuptials. Elaine still can quote her husband’s advice to their quarterback son: “It’s OK if you miss the wedding, but you better be there for the Christmas card picture.”Flip through a scrapbook and you’ll see the family evolve (plaid was rad in 1975) and expand its world.Consider 1981, when everyone posed at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, after one of Joe’s football games (he’d go on to play two seasons for the Green Bay Packers).The most recent Shield family Christmas card was taken at matriarch Elaine’s 90th birthday on Jan. 6, 2024. Photo by Kevin O’Connor/VTDiggerOr 1995, when Paul, recovering from a heart attack, took a photo with Elaine at Dr. Dean Ornish’s Preventive Medicine Research Institute in California (part of a coast-to-coast collage of images). Or 2007, when the couple celebrated its 50th wedding anniversary by flying everyone to Ireland for a family portrait (granddaughter Alison, then a Peace Corps volunteer in Bulgaria, popped in thanks to computer editing).All the grown children and their offspring now live out of state — in Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Texas — but regularly visit Vermont.For the 2009 card, they all traveled to the former Putney Inn, not knowing Paul, a longtime fuel dealer, would die of pancreatic cancer the next year. Elaine considered not mailing anything in 2010, as she had taken a similar pause after losing her father in 1971.But everyone knew their patriarch would want them to continue. And so they reunite annually for a photo, be it at a wedding, anniversary or Elaine’s 90th birthday this past Jan. 6.“From the family of Paul Shield,” says the latest card mailed to more than 100 friends.The “Forever” stamp on the envelope promises more to come.Read the story on VTDigger here: A Vermont family puts its stamp on a 55-year Christmas card tradition.