Christmas Day 2003, Cape Town, by Jillian Edelstein. 'I grew up in South Africa. Christmas Day was generally spent on the beach, so I associate this time of year with heat. For me, Christmas is a sunny scene like this. I usually balk at taking all the photographs at family gatherings, but I had agreed to take a group shot. Immediately afterwards, my son, who was nine, did this wonderfully spontaneous thing of diving into the pool in a Santa hat. Photographers often send out one of their shots as a Christmas card. One year, I used a portrait of Jane Horrocks wrapped in silver tinsel with a pine-cone garland on her head – but I always appreciate this kind of moment more, possible because I started my career in reportage; there is a realism about it that is beautiful. And my son was born on Christmas Day; to us, he is Christmas.' Photograph: Jillian Edelstein

Mother Drives Me in the Rain, 2000, by Elinor Carucci. 'This is a shot of my mother in Jerusalem. I was 29, but there was something about sitting with her that was very intense, and reminded me of being driven to piano lessons as a child. She had high expectations: I knew that I had to excel. That came back to me, and the rain made it more intense. Winter in Jerusalem, where I grew up, can be very harsh: it can snow. It means that Jerusalem people are more homey, as well as proud of their resilience to the weather. Now I live in New York, which is a bit the same. We just celebrated Hanukkah. I do feel the gap between how I was raised, surrounded by Jewish culture, and New York, where I have to make an effort. My daughter decorated the tree at her friend’s house, and she may have enjoyed that more. I visit my mother in Tel Aviv every summer, so this picture brings back a lot of memories: I don’t really get to see Israel in the winter any more.' Photograph: Elinor Carucci

Hackney Snowman, by Tom Hunter. 'It’s amazing when the snow comes in London. The sound of the city completely transforms: it’s deadened and silenced by this huge blanket. This is the first snowman built by both my children. We had just moved into a new house in Hackney, and got to know our neighbours that day. It was like going back a hundred years: no cars on the roads, everyone talking, everyone playing. We built this thinking we couldn’t make a real snowman: there didn’t seem to be enough snow when we started, and the children weren’t well versed in the art. The only traditional thing it ended up with was the carrot for its nose. It’s a comedy snowman, really. He’s like a bad dad dancer, with his arms in the air and those trodden-on glasses. It was the first snow my son had ever seen. He was crying and freezing most of the day; my daughter, who is older, saw the magic and the dancing.'Photograph: Tom Hunter

Zahi, 2000, by Jane and Louise Wilson. Louise Wilson: 'This was taken with an iPhone during the Yayoi Kusama exhibition at Tate Modern. It’s her 2000 installation called I’m Here, But Nothing – a room full of ultraviolet light and multi-coloured polka dots. Zahi, Jane’s five-year-old son, just loved that room.' Jane Wilson: 'It works because Lou managed to capture both the installation and Zahi’s lit profile. She got him standing in front of the video monitor, and used the glow to light his face. We both love this image because it shows a complete immersion in the installation, something we try to do in our own work.' Louise: 'Given the Ebacc situation, I think it’s incredibly important to get that level of engagement with art at a young age. There’s something about Zahi’s raptness that we could learn a lot from.' Photograph: Jane And Louise Wilson

Piccadilly Circus at dusk, 2011, by Thomas Ball. 'This was taken in Piccadilly Circus a few days before Christmas. I had been commissioned by the French magazine GEO to shoot iconic ­London scenes for a special Olympics issue. It was due to be published in March, so they didn’t want it to look like Christmas – and I was ­surrounded by ­decorations. I had very ­little time and only 20 sheets of film to get it right. I was working with my large format camera, and started to attract a lot of attention. At first it was impossible, but then the stress started to dissipate: I had some great chats with Londoners, who were intrigued, and with tourists, who wanted directions. I went from feeling very unfestive, on a mission to prove that it wasn’t ­Christmas, to having a great day. I succumbed to the atmosphere, and walked home looking forward to the whole thing. GEO ran this shot a few months later; they cropped out the “Season’s” on the Coca-Cola hoarding.' Photograph: Thomas Ball

Robert Trickett, December 1993, by Sean Smith. 'Guardian reporter Ed Pilkington and I were working on a story about homelessness. This guy, Robert, was sleeping rough on the Strand in London. He had recently come down from Nottinghamshire and had a pretty tough story. He didn’t want any money, so we took him for a meal. The waiters looked at us suspiciously because he had to bring his blankets with him. But we had a good meal, with the wine flowing. When we got back the next morning, he seemed freezing. For an awful moment we thought we had given him hypothermia. But he came to and was absolutely fine. I don’t know where he is now, but I was confident that things would work out for him. I wanted him to remember the night these guys from the Guardian took him for dinner. It was the sort of thing you hoped would happen if you were in that position.'

The M Video Christmas party, 2011, by Martin Parr. 'A year ago I photographed a whole lot of company Christmas parties in Moscow. It was an opportunity to see some of Russian high society enjoying themselves – which they do very effectively. This was taken at the biggest Christmas party I have ever seen in my life: there were 1,000 people. It was in a hangar of a place, and it was for M Video – a Russian electronics chain store. After a sit-down meal, a really well-known Russian band who immediately fired people up came on. Everyone was on the floor having a great time, and these women were more enthusiastic than anyone else: they were going hell for leather. Often, you need to exaggerate to make a good picture, but the reality was even more over-the-top than the photograph; you cannot overestimate the energy of these dancers.'