Who else is already thinking about holiday cards? Around this time of year, I frantically start posing my family as we’re out and about, trying to capture the perfect family portrait. We’re still looking for this year’s shot. I thought I had one from the beach this summer, but I’ve since decided that I think I look like a giant yellow peep in it (um, no, sorry, I’m NOT sharing that picture here). So the photo project continues.
I also start thinking of holiday cards so early because I tend to look through tons of cards until I find the perfect one for us. I’m a Shutterfly girl. Before E. was even born, we set up a Shutterfly share site to, well, share our oodles and oodles of pictures of her with our family all across the country. Since nearly all of my family, including my parents, live 1,500 miles away, posting frequent albums was the least I could do to help them with their granddaughter fix.
The first time I bought Shutterfly cards was for our birth announcement:
Look at that little baby! Since she was born in February, I had a really hard time picking just one picture for our first family Christmas card. So, I didn’t. I went with the three photo option:
Last year, I had some options mocked up, but then we went and got her picture taken with Santa. And, well, it was, in my humble opinion, just the greatest picture of a child with Santa. Ever.
I mean, have you ever seen a child happier to sit on Santa’s lap? I knew it would be best to just let that picture stand alone. And when I found a card that really matched the picture (look at the border with Santa’s chair. Perfect.), I was even more sold on the one-photo option.
Living in Florida, I find it’s always a bit more challenging to find the perfect card. Obviously, sending out a card with snow and winter scenes just isn’t going to work. I also used to avoid cards that said, “Merry Christmas” because I have so many friends that do not celebrate it. But, I’ve gotten lazy in the past couple years — if I found a Christmas one I liked best, I went with it! I mean, they all know that I celebrate Christmas, and so far, none of them have complained yet.
My last requirement is flat cards. It’s the cheater’s way out, but it’s all I can do to even get Christmas cards out every year. If I had to actually write something inside each of them, I’d have to get them printed by July to ever finish by mid-December.
So, I was really excited to start browsing through this year’s new Shutterfly Christmas photo cards collection. First, I filtered my options by 1 Photo, Flat Cards, 4×8. I find if I don’t limit my options some, I’ll NEVER pick a card. Here’s what I’m thinking for this year.
I like this one because we could really feature a nice picture of the family or just E., without competing with a lot of background noise. Although I fear that this will require a really fantastic photo. I just have to keep snapping!
Since we live in Florida, we could get away with this. Plus, it’s so easy for us to head over to the beach or in front of some palm trees and get the perfect tropical picture to go with this. Can you say Ugly Christmas Sweaters on the beach? Hmmmm, the possibilities…
I think this one is super sweet. It’s cute without being cutesy. As much as I love the chic designs, I think when you’re sending out pictures with the wee little ones you should take advantage of this small window of time and really embrace the childlike joys of Christmas. We’ll have plenty of time in the future to send more “grown-up” cards.
So, what do you think? Which ones should I pick? How do you pick the perfect holiday card? I’ll let you know when I pick our card. Until then, I have a lot of pictures to start taking!
Do you want 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly? Click here to go to Shutterfly for information on how you can get 50 free cards this holiday season, and make sure to select Clever 1000 as the referral source.
This post is part of a series sponsored by Shutterfly. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity, as I do.
Am going through this process too and also making my Shutterfly calendars. Love the desk calendars from Shutterfly but can’t find any good examples on their site of ones that are complete – trying to come up with ideas for a cute cover page. If anybody has examples they want to share, I would appreciate it!