**UPDATED**
I used to be one of those annoyingly prepared people who had my Christmas cards bought and addressed and stamped by September 30 and mailed out on December 1.
And then I had three kids.
And now I’m lucky if I get a decent snapshot of the three of them or the five of us and stick it in an envelope and mail it out by December 23. Every year I stress until I get The Picture. Last year I remember posting here on the blog a series of photos that was the result of our third Christmas card photo shoot effort. I think we had three photo shoots with approximately 50 shots from each until we finally got The Picture.
That was stressful, yall. And that is stress I do. not. need.
But guess what? This year is gonna be different. You wanna know why? Come on, I know you wanna know.
This year is different because it’s not even the end of August and I ALREADY HAVE THE PICTURE!!!!!!!!!!
So you know I’m all about organizing my life and getting my affairs in order for fall, right? So I thought, wouldn’t it be AWESOME if I ordered my Christmas cards and got them all addressed and everything before the end of September?? And I’d be DONE!!! Wouldn’t that be GREAT!?
So I clicked over to Snapfish to make up my photo card, and would you believe they do not have any Christmas card designs available right now? I mean, I know it’s August and all, but seriously, the stores already have Halloween candy for sale. And you know the malls will be decorated for Christmas by the end of September. It’s not too far-fetched to order my Christmas cards, is it?
But evidently it is. Because there are NO Christmas designs available. I checked out the Kodak Gallery, and they don’t have any available either! Unbelievable.
But then I scored Christmas photo cards when I visited Shutterfly. Unfortunately there isn’t a design I’m really crazy about, but I think I’m just gonna bite the bullet and order them anyway.
Because what do you wanna bet that if I wait, I will procrastinate until it’s December 20, and then I’ll have to pay extra to rush my order, and I’ll be up till 2AM one night addressing Christmas cards so I can get them in the mail before New Years Eve. You KNOW that’s what will happen.
So I’ll just settle for what’s available and then I can sit back and relax all nice and smug and self-satisfied. And then I’ll be laughing and pointing at the rest of you when you’re scrambling in December to get ready for Christmas. Because I’m a supportive friend like that.
UPDATE: Jennifer got me to thinking, with her comment on this post, about family pix versus pix of just the kids. Personally, I much prefer to receive photos of the whole family, particularly when the card is from someone I don’t see regularly. I used to send photos of just my kids, but now I send them of the whole family. What is your preference? Just kids? Or whole family??
39 Responses
Oh it’s just beautiful! Perfect!
Merry Christmas! Thanks for the reminder, too. I want to do picture cards this year as well.
I -just- sent you an e-mail about the family pics. I was wondering if you would use one for a card. Yay – that is wonderful to have that taken care of this early in the game!
Great! Now you can help me with mine! Perfect. When can we schedule a sitting with you and your SLR camera????????????? ’cause you know it’s all about me…
That is a great photo!! : )
What a perfect picture! Congrats on being such an organized early bird! 😉
It is a great picture! You have a beautiful family! Thanks for sharing
All five of you looking at the camera? Beautiful scenery in the background? the wind isn’t blowing hair in anyones eyes? All cards ordered before the end of summer? Everyone looks pleasant and happy?
That isn’t organization….
That’s a CHRISTMAS MIRACLE!!!!
The picture is awesome!
Definitely The Picture – it looks awesome! Way to go! I only had the kids in last year’s pic, because I wasn’t happy with the way I was looking and planned to “fix” that before the picture to be taken this year. Well, um….that didn’t happen either! So, I’m still not sure if ours will be a family or just kids pic. But thanks for getting me thinking about it! I’m bad about procrastinating, and go back and forth being ahead and being way late – so maybe this will be a good year! I think I can…I think I can!!! Woo Hoo for you though!!!!! That’s fantastic!
What a great picture. The background is beautiful….not to mention the family. 🙂
Five people and everyone’s looking at the camera and no one is doing goofy faces. You all look great, go for it. Don’t most people eventually cut off the Christmas design anyway to fit into frames or albums? And when you’re all done, maybe I’ll get you to do mine! ;v)
Beautiful! I love it. I might superimpose our heads on that picture and use it for our Christmas cards this year. 😉
Whole family, for sure, and that is an awesome picture!
i love you, but you annoyed me just then.
“all my christmas cards done by the end of september…” Jeez. Make us all look bad 😉
LOVE the picture!!! (And I really like how its not super “Christmas-y” – then it will look good on my fridge all year long!)
I think the whole family is great. And I’m so jealous. You guys look so nice and cool in the breeze.
That is a great picture. I like pictures of just kids and of families. We have only done the kids recently, because we (especially Husband) are not happy with the way we look and that may be vain or silly, but oh well. Good for you for getting organized. I was going to suggest that you could at least input all of your addresses into Word and make address labels. So when you did get your cards you wouldn’t have to write all of those out. You could just print the labels and stick them on. But you already took care of things, so never mind. 🙂
Beautiful picture!!! I definitely say pic of the whole fam vs just the kids!
If it makes you feel better, my nearby wholesale club (BJ’s) had a Starbuck’s gift pack out this weekend that said, “Warm Wishes”…my husband and I debated whether this was supposed to be early Christmas (their colors ARE white and green!) or just fall-ish…I think they’re sneaking in Christmas in August, I really do.
Good for you…and the picture is perfect!
Gorgeous picture – love it. I also am of the “family portrait” mindset for cards.
I, too, also order my cards before Halloween every year. I am your manic-OCD-separated-at-birth twin. Seriously.
Did you look under the “other” part of the snapfish borders? They usually have all the seasons available all year, you just have to hunt for them.
Good luck. It’s a very nice picture.
I love your family picture!! I prefer mom and dad in them also.
My luck, I would get my cards all done and ready to mail out, then when Dec. rolled around I would have forgotten where I put them! LOL :o)
Love the pic and I am SHOCKED that you actually have your christmas cards on the way! OMG. I like the whole fam. There are some people I never see except on a Christmas card. I want to see everyone!
That is a GREAT shot! It’s casual and doesn’t look over-posed – perfect for a Christmas card! I like seeing the whole family, too. And I usually send whole-family pictures. In recent years I make sure I’m the one holding Max on my lap because he serves as a nice cover-up, if you know what I mean! 🙂
Love the pic! Good for you, getting an early start. I like pics of the whole family!
Family pictures for sure! Yours is quite lovely!
We always get a family photo taken for Christmas Cards. Hubby and I hate getting in it, but we figure that not only would everyone receiving cards be happy to see all of us, but it’s probably the only time every year we have a photo of ALL of us. And we figure the kids would like having them from each year as well.
And of course, we also get individual photos of the kids done, along with a group photo of the kids together. It just has to be done!
LOVE your family pic, btw!!
Gorgeous photo!
Most of the photo cards that we get are of kids only, but I really love a full family photo.
And did I already mention that your photo is fabulous?
I tend to like just the kids in our xmas pics, but my dh tends toward the “whole family” motif… we do it one way one year the other way the next.
Hey, btw, Dec.20th is my bday 😉
I am such a bah humbug, I always put ALL xmas stuff off til last minute. (bad me) :-p
I would totally gloat too…
🙂 Grats!
Totally the whole family. For realz, people want to see what YOU look like if they don’t see you every week. Get the pets in the photo too if you have them is my motto!
Great job finding THE photo so early on. You could always go to https://weelittledesigns.com/ for more card layouts.
Thanks for commenting on my blog!!! I linked you to my Resource section because I will definitely be checking out your store in the future…GREAT gifts!!!!!
We have all learned that it doesn’t pay to be too early!! Congrats to you for being so on top of things. I like the whole family pictures so then we can talk about everybody…just kidding okay so maybe just a little 🙂
Mel
Just wanted to let you know that http://www.photoworks.com has christmas cards available. They have heaps of nice designs to choose from.
And regarding the photos – I like the whole family photo better!
Love your blog – it’s always so funny!
That is too funny. The same thing happened to me last year. My husband deployed to the Middle East in early Fall and we decided on THE picture and I wanted to get ahead of the game and there were NO Christmas photo cards designs to be had!! ughh! It all worked out and I got the out in early December. You just think they would leave the Christmas templates on the website all year, oh well.
I too like the whole family in the picture but with three kids and two adults that is not always practical. If we do one with just the kids we try to make sure the next year to get ALL of us in the picture the next year.
I like Anna’s idea as a kid for a coverup too! 🙂
I am glad I am not the only hyper anal person out there.
I definitely prefer the whole family! It’s fine, every couple of years, I guess, to send out a pic of just the kid(s), or as everyone seems to do, with the first kid on his/her first Christmas. But then, come on, your college buds want to see YOU! Your extended family members want to see the whole family! Not just the kid/s.
JMHO. 🙂
Jess
Yall are cracking me up about using the kid as coverup. I totally did that in this picture! In a few of the shots, I didn’t have a kid on my lap, and my stomach was all nasty and rolled out over my pants, and my shirt had somehow gotten hitched in there funny. I tried to photoshop it but I’m not skilled enough, so I just ended up looking deformed. Needless to say, I used a picture with a kid on my lap. LOL!! In the family picture of the 42 of us in Maine, I was all, Sure, I’ll hold the baby! 🙂 Ahhh, vanity. 🙂
guess i missed the picture. oh well!
i have a bit of a double standard. i love to receive whole family pictures, but i only like sending pics of my own kids. mainly cause it feels like i’m still too big even with a kid-shield. and it’s too stinkin hard to GET a pic of all 4 of us – we’ve even had a few this year, but not one i can use unless i use the one where we all poked our heads into one of those wooden pictures. guess i’d get points for originality though!
Yeah, why can’t I see the picture any more?
I did want to put in my however-many-cents on kids vs whole fam. I really want to see what my friends look like through the years! Often I have never even met their kids. So yeah, I prefer the whole family shot.
(One friend takes a picture of her cats each year, just for me, and sends me that instead of her kid shot she sends to everyone else.) (Which reminds me, did you ever tell us what the addition to your family was a few weeks back?)
A: I am very jealous that you already have The Picture as this is a point of stress for me each year too — you could have been talking about me in fact.
B: Whole family or just kids? Whichever picure I get first!
Hey, I love your blog! I was researching blogs of young mothers (to better understand my customers) and ran across yours. We have lots of Christmas photo card designs up at StoryLife.com, and more coming this month. You can use two (or up to four) photos in our cards, so you can have a family photo and a cute one of the kids too.