Christmas is coming

Every year we get so many beautiful family photo cards from all our friends.  I love to keep them up on a wall in our kitchen and marvel at how much everyone's kids have grown when Christmas rolls around again.  Every year I think we're going to get some good family pictures and do that, too.  The last two years we haven't even gotten any Christmas cards out - so I'm trying to plan ahead this year.  Since I started a photo share site on Shutterfly (thanks to my sister-in-law, Robyn) I've gotten all kinds of e-mail offers for discounts on prints, photo books, photo gifts (like these wall calendars or photo mugs), and, of course, photo cards.

I took advantage of one free photo card deal since I had some really cute pictures of Michaela.  She looked like she was singing in one (pictured above) and there were three grandmothers with summer birthdays so I had three copies of this card made for the cost of shipping.  They turned out really nice with photos inside and out so when I got an "exclusive email offer" for $10 off a $30 order, I clicked right over to their site and started thinking about possible designs for our first holiday photo card.  That great offer expired already (I'm not an early bird) but there are always special offers running that make this pretty affordable.  Of course, I could end up with 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly (and you could, too*).

We never get a really good family photo, so although the Retro Snowflake Bursts is my favorite design, it would take a Chrismas miracle to get everyone in our family looking at the camera and smiling at the same time!

Although this is not your traditional red and green Christmas card, I really like these Colorful Frames.  Breaking the family up into smaller groups gets us a better chance at getting good pictures.  A smaller family photo won't look so bad if someone has their eyes crossed and the three additional squares can showcase the big girls, the boys, and the baby.

Christmas Blessings with three pictures would be really nice.  If you select a card and "Get Started", you'll find that many of them can be altered to accomodate more or fewer pictures than are shown and you can choose a landscape or portrait orientation.  Some designs, like the one below, are an exception.

Since Adam and I haven't changed much, maybe it would be nice just to get an individual picture of each of our five kids along with these Four Wishes for Peace, Joy, Hope, and Love...this would be a great one to get out by the beginning of Advent.  I like how there is ample room for a message from our family.  Time to get out the camera!

*Bloggers get 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly: http://bit.ly/sfly2010