2015 Christmas Cards

This is our 2nd year in a row ordering our Christmas cards from Shutterfly, and I'm feeling particularly relieved to have this year's cards finished up and ready to mail. Sending and receiving Christmas cards is one of my very favorite holiday traditions, but it was kinda stressful this year. My kids do not make the photo experience easy. I still cannot believe we ended up with a single decent photo to use. It's a Christmas miracle.

I had envisioned a full family photo on our cards, but it turned out to be impossible for us to take a decent picture together. And even asking for a decent picture of just the kids together was totally unrealistic. More on that later.

Luckily, I chose a design that had room for one small picture on the back. There weren't any family photos good enough to make it to the front of the card, but at this little size, you can't even tell that it isn't the best shot ever.

I typically spend a lot of time clicking back and forth between different card designs, torn between lots of lovely options. This year though, I fell in love with one design right away. Shutterfly has hundreds of beautiful choices, but this one looked perfect at first sight. You can find the design I used HERE.

And I particularly love all the adorable coordinating details--like our colorful envelope liners that match our cards perfectly and add such a fun pop of color:

And I love the matching address labels and personalized stamps! I couldn't resist adding one of our photo shoot rejects to the stamp. It was just too good not to include somehow.

I used some glitter washi tape to fasten the envelopes . . . because glitter. Why not, right?

And I love the quality of the cards--the print job is beautiful, and the cards are so thick and sturdy. If you're shopping around for Christmas cards, look no further . . . I 110% recommend Shutterfly.

Now, for the not-so-pretty behind the scenes of our Christmas card photos.

I had envisioned a cute little Christmas morning scene for our pictures--matching pajamas, all of us sitting in bed together, maybe a pile of books nearby for us to pretend to be reading. I suppose it goes without saying that I envisioned everyone smiling and looking at the camera at the same time, but this is clearly expecting way too much.

I'm actually thinking that next year I'll give up on the cute picture entirely and just put together a collage card of all of us crying in front of a Christmas tree.