The bad: Christmas Cards

Throughout our marriage Jack and I have had the privilege of becoming close to many great people. Because of that, our Christmas card list has gotten quite lengthy. With that comes the great pressure I feel each year to produce a decent Christmas card, one that people will be as interested in looking at or reading as I am when I receive theirs. In addition, before blogging my newsletter served as our annual journal entry so it was that much more important that I did one.

Every January I tell myself "this will be the year that I will be more prepared". Meaning when it comes time to select photos for our holiday card I'll have plenty of options to choose from. But each year I find myself frantically searching through the past year's photos and coming up with nothing. So Thanksgiving marks for me, not the beginning of the shopping season but instead the beginning of the frantic picture taking season. This year was no different. Starting at Thanksgiving (after realizing that of all the thousands of photos I took this past year I had not one decent enough to place on a card) we began our weekly photo sessions, usually taking place just before church, and you know how well those go over. It's never pretty. We're quickly plopping kids in front of the tree, wreath, stockings or anything else that has a festive look to it. The kids are barely awake, half fed, and half dressed but that doesn't stop us.

So after a few unsuccessful photo shoots, I downloaded what I had, assembled my card and just before the clock struck midnight it was heading to some warehouse where they will be printed and returned to me within a few days. At least one thing was going well. They were getting out on time!

Well this year it looks as if in my haste to get the card completed I had forgot to save my changes during some of my editing sessions on Shutterfly and ended up with devil cards (you know the ones with red eyes) and an unedited greeting and message. Clearly something I couldn't blame Shutterfly for. I was hoping that the more I stared at them the better they would begin to look but it didn't work. So last night I stayed up and quickly put together and ordered another card. I figure I'll send Jack to work with the "devil" ones along with giving those to my forgiving local neighbors and friends who see us frequently enough and know that although the kids can act very devilish, they have yet to actually turn into devils. The verdict is out on how the new ones will turn out but I can say I think many of my family and friends would have been just as happy with a Starbucks gift card...I mean really, I think I've hit the frappachino level on cost per card...

The point of this post? To complain. I just needed to complain.


"Just woke up" Sage


"Refusing to cooperate" and "have to have orange" Sage