Time to start thinking about Christmas Cards.

In a couple of weeks Halloween will be over and it will be time to officially prepare for the 'real holidays'. Christmas cards are always a part of holiday traditions and preparations in our home. I love getting Christmas cards and I especially enjoy sending our family photo with them. The last few years I have made Christmas photo cards online. I think photo cards are more memorable and lets face it, will less likely be thrown away after they have been displayed on someone's mantel (or maybe I just assume that!).

I have a few tips to share how I like creating our cards from year to year.

• Choose one quality photo rather than 2 or 3 photos squeezing into a small photo card. This is my personal preference, just one photo of the whole family is nice and simple on a card.
• Coordinate colors. I don't like clothing to be too matchy-matchy, but a flow of color is a great idea. I usually match my shirt to Andrew's and Ethan's ties they wear with their suits. If you don't wear the same shade of colors, pick something that at least compliments each other and doesn't clash. I don't think you would want to wear a pink blouse if your husband has a red tie.
• Have father and son matching ties. I recently came across these a couple of weeks ago online and purchased two sets for Andrew and Ethan. Over the last 2 years it has been very difficult to find a baby or toddler tie that will match an adult tie closely! They are reasonably priced as well.
• Take a family photo in the same spot year to year. Our family photo is always in front of our Christmas tree. It gives a beautiful background. The tree won't change from year to year (except maybe the color of ribbon wrapped around it), but our little family standing in front of it does :-)
• Add your pets. If you have well behaved pets, I think it's cute to add them to your family photo. We tried that the year before we had Ethan and it was difficult! We have two large malamutes that are not kept in the house. We ended up taking a photo with us and the pets separately to get them to stay in one spot. 

Here are our family Christmas photos I have used for our cards.

2007 

(we just found out that day we were expecting our first baby!)

2008

2009

2010

yet to be taken- but I will share once done :-)

Where to buy photo cards? You definitely want to choose a site that prints on high quality material and inks. PurpleTrail is a great site that has an amazing selection of personalized holiday cards.  My favorite are the really simple cards with elegant prints. Even though PurpleTrail has a wide assortment of personalized holiday cards for whatever your style is, if you still don't see something that is exactly that you want they also have a Make Your Own Custom Design card. I took a few minutes to use the PurpleTrail site and create a card. It was very simple! I have had difficulty using some websites before, but PurpleTrail really is user friendly. Go ahead and check out the PurpleTrail site and pick out the card you want to create this year. With PurpleTrail you will be sure to get the perfect Christmas card!

 

 

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