Years ago, when I worked onboard a ship off the coast of West Africa, I had my cards sorted WAAAAY before the holidays. Fellow crew members who disembarked before Christmas, would often take letters and packages back to their respective countries and mail the stash for those of us who didn't trust Africa's postal system. All we had to do was give them our stack of cards plus the cash to buy stamps.
It was a gamble though. Sometimes crew didn't have space, or they weren't going to the country you wanted to send your cards to. That's when my holiday cards turned into Happy New Year ones.
Nowadays, the only excuse I have is the Peanut. (Let's face it though, he's a pretty good excuse and I'm milking the postpartum craziness for all its worth. International holiday card recipients... I apologize. Your cards may only arrive after the New Year depending on when I can get to the post office.)
This year, rather than the usual newsletter and family pic, I chose the 'easy and quick' option to upload a photo and order custom greetings from Snapfish, emphasis on easy and quick — two words I use to describe my ideal dinner prep these days.
Only it wasn't easy. Getting the family photo alone proved a challenge. For starters, I had to wait until the Sailor arrived back home, and then we had to try to squeeze it in during a time when we all three looked presentable to the world. I'm still not convinced that the Sailor and I look all that great in the only photo where the Peanut is not squirming, but the little guy looked super cute, so we called it a day and picked the best of a bad bunch.
And it certainly wasn't quick, because it took me forever to choose a card. Once I had a template picked out, I'd realize that our photo looked strange in it — mainly because I cropped it due to aforementioned goofiness in the photo of the Sailor and me.
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| Christmas cookies may not happen this year at this rate! |
I could have taken the really easy and quick way out and just uploaded an awesome photo of the Peanut. However, I have always promised myself that if we ever had young 'uns, I wanted us ALL to be in the Christmas photo. I never wanted to be one of those couples who opted to send out Pinterest perfect photos of only their spawn.
Henceforth, our goofy photo of the three of us for this year's card.
Once I ordered the holiday cards though, I also realized that I never actually sent out an official birth announcement about the Peanut. Oh sure, I texted and emailed and Facebooked our friends and family... but I still wanted to send out a traditional sort of announcement. I wanted to handcraft something, but let's be realistic, time was not on my side. By this point, I just wanted to chuck something into the Christmas card itself. Of course it had to be 'easy and quick', like the Christmas card. But I just didn't like any of the templates I saw online.
Enter Moo. I love Moo and have been a fan since their early days. I uploaded four different pics of the Peanut, and typed out the announcement on the back of the mini-cards and voila, just like that, 100 announcements arrived in the mail for a fraction of the price of traditional ones. All I had to do was stick one on each of my Christmas cards with washi tape. An added bonus? Now I have four fun photos to add to the rotation in my Moo mini-card frame.
How about you? Are you scrambling to send holiday cards, or are you skipping this year? Regardless, if you need an idea of how to display the ones you're receiving, check this post out. In the meantime, I'm going to brave the post office tomorrow. Let's hope that next year I get my act together by Thanksgiving.
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