christmas

Our Holiday Card - 2024

I love to create holiday cards; especially for my own family. You can see my past holiday cards here.

I’m actually frustrated that my family hasn’t managed any professional photos since the end of 2020. But, I am hoping to remedy that in 2025. If anyone can recommend a photographer in Salt Lake City that is good at posing families, please let me know.

For us, 2024 revolved heavily around the sports my kids play; soccer, taekwondo, track & field, and cross country. My husband is an assistant coach on one kid’s soccer team. I have a black belt in taekwondo and often help train kids for tournaments or belt testing. I’m sometimes a hurdles coach for our track team and I do all of the social media for our track and cross country teams. I also take photos at soccer games, track and XC meets, taekwondo tournaments, and belt tests. Because of sports commitments, we didn’t even manage to squeeze in a family vacation this year. The trip to Missoula, Montana we took for a track meet didn’t count!

So yeah, my husband and I feel like all we did was work and drive kids to and from school and sports this year. I’m not resentful, we both feel that it’s important to stick with a team if you’ve committed to it. But, DAMN we’re tired.

It was only appropriate that our holiday card to reflect that sentiment. I had no shortage of photos of my kids in their respective sports, but alas, no photos of the four of us except for a selfie or two (at a sporting event no less!).

On the back, a brief rundown of what my kids were up to with their respective sports and photos of my husband and me doing what we felt like we did all year…. taxi driver, photographer, asst coach, and day job to pay for ALL the sports.

I’m really happy with how our cards turned out.

I had them printed at my local Office Depot on card stock. I ordered some really cheap kraft paper envelopes from Amazon (that I won’t order again because the adhesive didn’t work). I printed addresses using my old HP laster printer to make things easier.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, Yule, Saturnalia, Solstice, Festivus… whatever you celebrate to make winter feel less dreary.

Laura's Holiday Card - 2023

2023 marked 10 years that I’ve been working with Laura on all of her creative and fun holiday cards. Here you can see every fun holiday card Laura and I have worked on together.

2023 was no exception when it came to something fun. Laura joked about doing a traditional card with just a family photo. I told her their family would wonder if something was wrong or if there was a hidden meaning.

This year was simpler than previous years; minimal Photoshop this time. She just sent me the photos of her family and I went to work with the Polaroid concept and the simple wood background.

What a fun holiday card!! Thanks, Laura!

Laura's Holiday Card - 2022

Laura’s ideas for amazing and creative holiday cards never disappoints. This year was no exception. She’s been honing her skills as a makeup artist lately and she used that for her family’s holiday card this year.

Laura did all of the awesome makeup and her daughter happily got dressed up as Cindy Lou from the Grinch. I just cut everyone out in Photoshop and made it all pretty with text. I love how it turned out!!

Here you can see every fun holiday card Laura and I have worked on together.

I’m more impressed that Laura has been able to convince her family to go along with these ideas year after year! Kudos!

Laura's Holiday Card - 2021

Laura never disappoints with unique and creative ideas for her family’s holiday card. Every year she jokes about doing a “normal” card and freaking out their friends and family thinking there’s some kind of hidden Easter egg of kookiness. Nope!!

This year Laura had fun with Photoshop and some fun, fake book cover ideas. I helped out with some Photoshop too; especially getting her son’s head and their pug, Mr Bean into the Last Action Hero poster and coming up with the book type. I also threw together the plaid background and the actual books that each cover is part of. This was SO much fun to work on!!

A little zoomed-in action. Thanks for this EPIC holiday card concept, Laura!!

April's Holiday Card - 2021

April’s holiday card for this past year was pretty awesome and I love how it turned out. She convinced her son to post in a bathrobe holding a soda can and I went to work in Photoshop to turn him into Uncle Eddie from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.

National Lampoon Christmas Vacation Holiday Card

I was able to include their two dogs in there as well and it was so much fun to work on. It was actually an interesting challenge to get the photos to match since any photos I could find of this scene from the film were quite grainy.

What a fun and hilarious idea for a holiday card, thank you, April!