Christmas Cards & Letters

Our Christmas card from 2004--the year we were married. This is one of my favorites!

One of my favorite things about this time of the year is Christmas mailings! I love to send and to receive Christmas cards--I have for as long as I can remember. Even when I was a little girl, I always looked forward to getting the mail at Christmastime to see all the beautiful holiday cards that our family would get. I loved it (and still do) when the card would include a photo--and a letter was even better! I know some people don't like annual holiday updates, but I love them! I also love the stamps, address labels, stickers and other things folks use to dress up their envelopes.

I started sending out an annual Christmas letter back in 1997--the year I graduated from college. (Yes, I was on the five-year program--but I transferred schools and worked, too. So there.) One of my inspirations for doing so was my Great Aunt Edith. She had written a holiday update every year since the 1950s or '60s, I believe, and she told me that she had kept a copy of each one and enjoyed reading through them every once in a while. (She never married, but she traveled the world and was very active in her community, so she had some great stories to share.) Anyway, I thought this was so neat--what an easy way to record parts of your family history.

Like Aunt Edith, I have saved a copy of each of my letters--and most of the cards that accompanied them, too. A couple of years ago, I gathered them all and started a scrapbook of just Christmas letters. I love to look through it. I thought I would share just a few pages with you today and encourage you to write a year-end summary of your life. Even if you don't share it with others, it's a great way to see how you have grown and changed. Not only that, but also you can see what God is doing in your life each year and how He has answered prayers, etc.

Here is a small sampling from my Christmas letter scrapbook. Believe me, there are several more pages. I have (obviously) blurred some of the letter contents. I don't think there is anything controversial in there, but I didn't feel like reading through each one to make sure. hahaha

1997--my first Christmas letter. I printed it out on my home computer and cut it out with decorative scissors (remember those?) to fit inside the cards I sent (bought them at Gap the year before, I believe).

In 1998, I printed my letter on holiday-themed paper. Now I usually just use plain colored paper. This year's, for example, is an ivory color. I've also used blue, light green, and plain white.


Another one from the early years--I think this was from 2000.


2001--the infamous Bueller card.


Sometimes, I will include a photocopied montage of pictures from the year. I haven't done so the last couple of years though. This one is from 2001.


Here's another photo montage. It's from 2002.

Tanna made the Christmas card in 2003--we were engaged by that time, so I figured it was safe to have him in the picture. LOL! He (and other boyfriends) had been mentioned in previous letters and had made appearances in montages, but no one made it in the actual Christmas photo until there was a diamond ring involved. Hahahahahaha! ("Tanna Claus" was my sister's idea--LOL!) The photo is actually from Christmas of 2002--but this card was sent in 2003.

Our 2005 card featured a photo from our trip to Korea. I guess you could say the theme this year was peace on earth. I love the various designs of children holding hands around the world, and I have a similar Christmas ornament (I think from that same year). We used some wording from the famous Coca-Cola Christmas commercial ("I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony ..."). It worked out nicely because I am holding a Coke in the photo, which was taken near the border of North and South Korea. Our address label (ordered from VistaPrint) has a Korean-flag background.

Here's our card from 2006. I was kind of disappointed in how this one turned out, but I did get a great deal from Snapfish, and I wasn't willing to pay for new cards after receiving these. This year had a snowflake theme ... with snowflakes on the card, the newsletter (not pictured), the address labels ... and even the postage stamp! (Yes, I love seeing and purchasing the Christmas postage stamps each year. So fun!) I also stamped the envelope with a snowflake stamps (borrowed from my sister).

There you have it--just a few examples of some of my Christmas mailings from the last several years. I plan to save a copy for Kate to keep as well. I think it'll be a neat thing for her to have when she is all grown up. Merry Christmas!