Growing up I don’t remember a lot of photo Christmas cards and the few that we did receive were usually poor quality photos on photo paper with semi-blurry words stating, “Merry Christmas”.  (Full disclosure, I grew up when “politically correct” wasn’t in existence).

Today, with very little computer skills you can have any kind of card you want, using any photograph you want and many of the companies will even label your envelopes for you!

A couple of weeks ago one of my favorite columnists for the Los Angeles Times, Chris Erskine, wrote a piece about taking the family photo for the Christmas card.  One of the funniest lines in the piece was,

“My wife, Posh, approaches the Christmas card photo like a Vogue editor perusing the perfect cover. She once flew the whole bunch of them to Paris for the right Christmas shot”.

To read this very funny column visit HERE.

image via Martha Stewart

When did we become so determined to show friends and family the year’s progress in photographs?  Don’t get me wrong, I too realize that I’m just slightly disappointed when I only get a lovely card sans photograph.  Crazy, right?  As if we don’t have enough other important tasks on our list this time of year, we have to include thinking about a photo-op sometime during the 11 ½ months prior to December 25^th!

That said, on our trip this past week to Austin, I went with 2 goals in mind.  1.  Bond with my infant grand daughter so that when I see her next she won’t cry when Grandma wants to hold her; and 2.  Get a card-worthy picture of the little bundle of joy for my Christmas card this year.

I am happy to report that we were successful on both fronts.

A few good sources for photo cards:

Cards Direct

Tiny Prints

Costco*note, you must have a membership card for this company.

image via Martha Stewart

Do you do photo cards for the holidays?