If you plan to have pictures of your children in this year’s “Santa’s Little Helpers” section, remember you have 11 days left to select just the right picture and bring or send it to the Advertiser’s office at 1109 Seventh St. N.

The pictures will be published in The Clanton Advertiser’s Dec. 25 edition along with the names of the children’s parents and grandparents. The feature has been a part of our Christmas edition for many years and the smiling faces of the children always help make that edition special.

Last year more than 140 children were featured over four-pages. There is no age limit on the children and some parents and grandparents have run their children as a group in a single picture. The cost to run a picture is $12 for each child.

Picking just the right picture of your grandchildren to run in The Advertiser is part of the fun of sharing the pictures with your friends and relatives on the “Santa’s Little Helpers” pages. Having two grandchildren (both less than 3 years old) myself, I know picking just the right picture is no easy chore sometimes.

My wife, Peggy, goes over the hundreds of photographs that have been taken of our one and 2-year old grandchildren, narrows the pictures down to a few pictures of each child, then spreads those out for me to help her choose “just the right ones.”

I possess the uncanny ability of not picking the ones she has already decided were the best. It happens every time.

I’ve also learned saying “You just pick them out and they will be fine with me” doesn’t work either. I have to be part of the decision-making process….no matter how long it takes.

I’ve decided my best bet is to have Peggy narrow my choices down to two pictures of each grandchild. Then I will determine which picture I believe is best but I will pick the other one. Who knows? That way I just might be able to pick the ones she really wants the first time.