Do you still mail our Christmas cards every year? I do, and I love getting them in return too! It’s that most wonderful time, when so many of us grab our cameras and try to wrangle our kids into nice clothes to show everyone how much they’ve grown and just how adorable our family is this year. But getting that perfect holiday picture and sending out all those cards often cause more stress than satisfaction. Is all the time, effort and stress really worth it?

I think so, or I wold not keep doing it! This year I used a variety of pictures from throughout the year in a ‘photo collage’ type card, instead of staging one single photo, which has been a pain in the neck to do in years past! Trying to fins a time when we are all together, everyone looking nice and then trying to get a good shot of the whole family including our 3 dogs all looking at the camera was nearly impossible!

I always envy the people who write the annual ‘newsletters’ with family news and pics and wish I had the time to do that too. Maybe someday, when I am retired and have TIME! I sure enjoy reading the ones I do get though…and maybe some day I WILL have time to do that too!  This year was pretty easy, using pictures I already had, instead of a fancy staged one! And since all I had to do was address and stamp the envelopes and mail them all out, it was not all that hard to do either! How do you  manage to make the Christmas card a pleasant experience?

Is sending out Christmas cards really worth all the time, effort and sometimes stress that goes along with doing it?