Everyone likes to receive either photo greeting cards or photos inside greeting cards, especially if they live far apart. Some photos are better than others, for various reasons. You can either use a favorite vacation or event photo, or take a photo especially intended for the card. There are times that you may want to include the entire family, adults only, or just the children.

Before getting into posing, I'll go over some photography basics, since the best pose won't matter if the photo lacks fundamentals. The following are some basic tips for taking better family photos for greeting cards:

Use good composition! Make sure there isn't a busy, distracting background that draws the eyes away from the people in the picture. Make sure there aren't branches or lampshades coming out of someone's head. Either move the subjects or move yourself (or camera location if using a timer). Have the background further away to give more depth to the photo.

Fill the frame. Arrange people so that they are close together. Put in as little background as possible, unless it is pertinent. Put the tallest peoples' heads close to the top of the frame. If people are standing or seated in chairs, use waist-up or chest-up for the shortest person. If they are sitting or otherwise on the ground, include a little of the ground at the bottom.

Lighting - Make sure the background isn't much brighter than your subjects. Use a flash with the redeye setting if there are shadows. Bright sunlight makes people squint and gives harsh shadows under the nose and chin, so use a flash to fill in the shadows.

Perspective / Angle - Take the photo at eye level, move down to the level of the subject.

Camera  Position - For side-by-side photos, use the camera in the horizontal position.  For stacked / top-bottom poses, use the camera in the vertical position.

Setup

Choose seasonal clothing for posed holiday photos. Red and green are most commonly used for Christmas, blue and white for Hanukkah, browns/blacks/yellows/oranges or costumes for Halloween, pastels for Easter.

The use of props can add to the photo. Here are some ideas:

Valentines Day - hold a flower, red heart box

Easter - Easter baskets, stuffed animals such as bunnies or chicks, colored plastic Easter eggs, pots of spring flowers or cut bunches / bouquets, bunny ears

Halloween - pumpkins, a black cat (if you have one), colorful fall leaves, straw hats

Christmas or Hanukkah - pine branches, wreaths, wrapped boxes, dreidels, seated on sled, snow scenes or snowman. Decorated Christmas trees tend to be too distracting for backgrounds

Memorial Day or Veterans' Day for veterans - holding flags, standing with / in front of a flag or flags

Terminology

Quarter turn - half way between full face on and profile, looking at the camera

Prone - Lying face down on stomach

Spooning - one smaller person fits into the other larger person close together like stacked spoons

Long Seated - Sitting with legs out straight

Posing

There are many different poses for different situations. It depends on whether you are photographing just children, just adults, or the whole family. As a general rule, full-front poses are pretty boring, so try these poses:

Children

Photographing young children can be difficult. For two or three children, some good poses are prone on elbows next to each other, long seated sort of "spooning" with a quarter turn, standing or seated with a quarter turn. If one puts a hand on the shoulder of the other, holds hands, or hugs them, it will add to the togetherness of the photo. For infants, have one of the older children hold them long seated, spooning in a quarter turn.  A variant of the long seated position is to have the back leg bent with elbow casually resting on the knee.

For four or more children, order siblings according to size / age. Pair up the older one(s) with a younger one and do the same as above, using quarter turns.

Adults (Usually Couples)

Adults are easier to pose, because they tend to be less fidgety.

Quarter-turn pose each facing the same way (almost spooning), with the one behind putting a hand on the front one's shoulder, heads tilted toward each other or straight, looking at the camera.

Quarter turn facing each other, slightly overlapped, with shorter one leaning head toward taller one's shoulder.  Taller one has front arm bent at the elbow towards shorter one's hips.

Quarter turn facing each other with arms interlocked at waist level.

Not quite quarter turn (more frontal) with one person sitting on stool, the other behind with forearm across top of seated person's back (should not be a significant height imbalance).

One standing behind another seated on a stool in quarter turn.  Person behind has hand on seated person's farther shoulder, seated person touches that hand with hand of same side.

Families (Adults and Children)

Family of Three - Use poses that are basically triangular - two higher and one lower in middle, or one higher and two lower.  Whichever is used, it works best if the lower person(s) head level is slightly below shoulder height of the higher person(s) behind. The angles people face can be a combination - all quarter turn one direction, or two in quarter turn facing each other with third frontal. 

Family of Four - Use posing to give either a diamond shape (one highest, two in middle, and one lower) or square / rectangle (two higher and two lower).  Using the square / rectangle strategy is a bit more difficult if there is a big difference in height. Use stools if necessary to even out the heights and get the lower heads a bit below shoulder level of the higher one(s).  Again, quarter turns can be mixed and matched as above.

Family of Five - Use posing to give either a diamond shape (one highest, three across, and one lower) or trapezoid (two higher and three lower).  The same variations in quarter turns facing inward towards the center works best.  All facing one way doesn't look as attractive.  Use combinations of hands on shoulders to see what looks best.

For larger families, it may be necessary to have some standing, some seated in chairs, and some on the floor / ground. The family members on the outside should be in a quarter turn towards the center, gradually lessening the angle until the center person is front-facing.

For each of these, combine the above poses with composition, filling the frame,  lighting, and perspective / angle.

The beauty of using digital cameras is that you can take as many photos as necessary and see how they look immediately.  Take a few photos of each pose, and mix and match poses.  The more photos you take, the better chance of getting a really nice one!

Once you have your chosen photo, what next? There are services that make photo cards or photo postcards where you choose one of their designs and sumit your photo to order prints.  There are also photo editing software programs that have the same type of features, where you choose a frame, decorate it, and create a colorful text message.  It's possible to print them on your own home printer, which is fastest, but the quality is not like the photographs that are ordered (when you turn them in the light, you can see the printed layers, especially blacks).  For better quality prints, you can take your memory card or memory stick to the supermarket, drugstore, etc., and get prints there.  You can also order prints online, which may be the least expensive, since there are many deals and specials.  Just upload your file from your computer and place your order.