Our Last Minute Family Christmas Card

It started when the Nutcracker was canceled.

Okay, so it wasn’t exactly canceled. I had written the wrong date on my calendar. Again.

The girls were all dressed up with no place to go. I had already postponed our family photo shoot because elves and Christmas pageants and Santa sightings and Eva, my December baby, have swallowed up every minute of December, so we shuttled the girls to the backyard and took our own family photos.

I’ll let that sink in for a minute.

One thing that all parents know is that when it’s most important for kids to pose for a picture, they will force fake smiles and stare sullenly into the distance and be generally uncooperative. Even the easygoing one, the one who never met a camera she didn’t love, will suddenly decide to experiment with new expressions that will prompt your normally patient husband to blurt out: “She’s trying to ruin the pictures.”

So this happened.

And this.

Oh, and most of all, this.

Aahhh the shenanigans…

It wasn’t all bad. There was a little of this.

Very little of this, actually. And even that was dark.

Fortunately, Minted has some magic elves that transform whatever you put in into something sort of magical. (Kind of like a slow cooker. You can throw all sorts of things in and they come out edible).

And, since it was December 6 and Christmas cards don’t design themselves, I hopped on Minted.com and made some quick decisions. Fortunately, I found some amazing ideas for our last minute family Christmas card. I didn’t overthink it. (There wasn’t time). I picked a color, a layout, and a design I loved and started my card. (I did the same thing I do with a menu at a really good restaurant. I make a decision then slam the menu shut before I change my mind).

Between the foil and the gorgeous colors and the beautiful designs and the interesting card shapes, I could have designed cards all day. And even though I lack design skills, they came out pretty good. Beautiful, actually.

Disclaimer: “Joy” photo chosen by my husband, and even though it lacked the composition I wanted, I gave in. It’s Christmas, after all.

Not bad for 2 hours on a drizzly Sunday afternoon. Oh, and get this, Minted.com will even address the envelopes for you. You just upload your list. And if you order your cards by December 11, you can get them by the 18th and get them out in plenty of time for Christmas!

Can I get an amen?