Holiday To Do List: Order Those Christmas Cards!

Falalala! It's the most wonderful time of the year in our house! We are gearing up for a meaningful yet simple, family centered holiday season. With a five year old, we are truly at a GREAT age for Christmas - Connor is a big believer in all of the magic that goes a long with the holidays and Brian and I love every single second of his joy! Traditions at the Christmas Holidays are big in my family - special foods, special Christmas Eve rituals, and along with those, we have added some of our own special traditions since we've been married. One of the most anticipated Christmas Traditions since Connor was born has been our Christmas Card photo. We spend several weeks in the fall thinking about what we will do for the photo, what he will wear, and what kind of card we want to send. When Connor was a baby, I made all of the Holiday Cards by hand and enclosed a photo of him. Then, I got busy, and I bought premade cards to attach a photo to. Easy, but not quite what I had in mind. It was when Connor was three that we found the solution!

Shutterfly.  With GORGEOUS card designs, a simple to use interface, and great prices, we figured that we would give it a try. When the cards showed up, we were stunned. The paper was thick and luxurious, the quality of the printed image was phenomenal and the colors were just so vivid!  It's been such an easy process for us for the last two years that I am so excited about ordering from them again this year - especially when I saw their Holiday 2010 designs. We are anxiously awaiting just a light snowfall this weekend to take our photos (we have a great idea in mind for this year's photo...so excited!) so that we can get our order in.  So...what will we choose???

With so many great designs, it's been difficult to decide, but right now we have it narrowed down to the following card designs...


We just love the cool, wintry blue of this one combined with the Vintage typeface.  It's called Vintage Noel Christmas.

Image from Shutterfly.com

Image from Shutterfly.com

This card is called the Red Revamped Christmas Card. We love the traditional red and green used on this card in combination with the black and white photo option. The square card reminds us of our wedding invitations and we think it's a nice twist on a Holiday card. It would be great with the family photo we have in mind.

Our last contender for Christmas Card 2010 is this one....Sending Holiday Cheer.
We could totally see a photo of Connor and Dunkin the Dog on it...

Image from Shutterfly.com

This one made our list because of the bright green and red color combo, the fun text box and the fact that we could be a little sillier with our photo on this card. Sooo, which one will we choose? We will let you know!

Image and Text from Shutterfly.com

The fabulous thing about Shutterfly is that they aren't just for holiday cards...we've also ordered thank you cards, photo mugs and photo mouse pads as gifts from them as well. My favorite gift ever, though, was the photo book I ordered last year for Brian, showcasing photos of our family from each month throughout the year.  It was a big hit! We have it displayed in our family room, it gets a lot of views, and its glossy, hard cover still looks brand new. Definitely keep them in mind for a unique gift for those hard to buy for grandparents!  It was super easy to put together, I simply uploaded the photos that I wanted to use, added text and basically dragged and dropped into one of my choice of templates. I could have added as many photos and pages as I wanted to. I just couldn't get over how easy it was!


In addition to all of the great products that Shutterfly offers, they are offering a great promo for bloggers! We wouldn't even mention this if it wasn't a company that we truly adore, but we feel that this is such a great product from a great company that we had to share it with you. Don't miss the chance to get your holiday cards!  Bloggers get 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly… sign up here: http://bit.ly/sfly2010.  

Sooo, have you sent out your Christmas Cards yet??  If so, what do you do? Are you the traditional boxed cards family, photo cards, lengthy Christmas letter?  Tell us in the comments!