THE CHRISTMAS CARD

I love Christmas cards.

My parents made us take a picture each Christmas every year. There were times when I hated posing for the annual shot. There are some Christmas card pictures that I love and others (especially those during my awkward middle school days) that I'd like to forget. But I love the tradition. I love that I have a little photo album of just Christmas card photos from my childhood. I love looking back and seeing how my brother and I grew and changed from year to year. I love reflecting on what we were doing in the pictures --- there was the soccer year where we wore our soccer uniforms, the year with our dog Bandit, the years of swimming where we wore our Hampton Dolphins uniforms, and the unfortunate years where we tried to pose in our Sunday best. Our family Christmas cards tell the story of us as a family. And I love them.

So it is important to me that each year we take the time to design and send out Christmas cards to friends and family.

This year getting a family Christmas card together was a little bit harder than it has been in the past for several reasons. First, getting a quality family picture with a two year old is challenging - to say the least. And second, my camera was stolen when our house was robbed last month and we did lose some pictures from the computer that was stolen.

I have been feeling a little stressed about getting our card designed and the cards printed in time for the holidays.

Plus there are so many choices when it comes to designing and printing your Christmas cards. This year I decided to use Shutterfly for our Christmas cards. We've been using Shutterfly for several years now as our online photo album and I've always liked their services and products. Their Christmas card designs this year were fantastic (we spent considerable time deciding which one we liked best out of five or six choices) and I really like that the cards can be printed on cardstock. Shutterfly's prices were also reasonable and their holiday savings coupons and deals were unbeatable.

We have coupons for a free photo calendar if we spend $50 or more AND I am also participating in a promotion where you post a blog entry about your shutterfly card and you get 50 cards for free.

SWEET!!

Shutterfly is also offering 30 percent off all cards ordered before December 1st. And free shipping.

We hope to have our cards ordered in the next 24 hours and mailed to friends and family before December 20th. This also poses a huge challenge because my dissertation defense is scheduled for December 20th. We also need to bake and deliver more than 15 plates of Christmas cookies to neighbors and friends. And do some Christmas shopping.

Here's to getting into the Christmas spirit, checking everything off of my to-do list, and celebrating the creation of a wonderful Christmas card...