Christmas Cards

Each year about this time something happens. My mailbox is a little fuller and the mail lady has to carry a bit more in her arms. Some of this is accounted for by the online purchasing of goods, some due to the increased junk mail touting HUGE after Thanksgiving sales, but the additional mail I look forward to comes in small colorful envelopes. It might be just me, but I enjoy Christmas cards. I’ve been fortunate, I guess, to have incredibly talented family and friends that deliver these amazing little cards year after year.

Over the last two years I’ve noticed an increasing trend, the Photo Card. You know the type, a picture of the family (usually taken months prior on some beach) with the words “Happy Holidays” written underneath them. Costco, Apple, Snapfish all crank these little babies out by the thousands. So far this year’s ratio is looking like 1 homemade card for every 10 photo cards. I’m sure there is good reason for the increase of these sins on humanity: people are busy, the photo card has started to look better, they’re easy, cheap, etc.

I beg of you, before you hit that submit button on the snapfish website, consider what your looking out on. With a homemade card you get the opportunity to express true creativity, share a story (this is after all the greatest story of all time), involve the entire family… in essence you get to express who your family is, in one card. With the photo card you get to show your mug and maybe type in a phrase (not too long or they’ll charge you extra). So next year around the end of November as you ask yourself if you should take the time to make your cards or just place a quick order of photo cards online, think hard.

Update: I ran across a PDF from Before and After magazine on designing your own Christmas cards (scroll down). It might be worth a look for those of you that would like to get back into the craft of custom cards.