Our 2014 Christmas Card & A Little Winter’s Nap

Hooray!! It is finally the last day of school before winter break!! To all my teacher friends out there – YOU MADE IT! 🙂  I’m so excited to have two glorious weeks at home with my boy!!  I admit that I’ve got more grading to do at home than I would prefer, but I’ll take grading essays by the fire in my pjs any day!  I’m hoping for lots of naps, movies, lunch and dinner dates, family festivities, and a good bit of nesting.  What about you?

Anyway, today I’m sharing our 2014 family Christmas card:

As I mentioned back in this post, we decided to take a new and fun route with our Christmas cards this year. Since we never got it together to have family photos made, I worked with Rachel from The British Rule on Etsy to design this cute portrait instead and had it printed on heavy card stock via Vistaprint. Rachel was so great to work with – she even did a separate print without the holiday wording and details for us to frame in our house – and was so patient with all my requests and detailed emails.  Plus, I think she made Jeff and I look pretty darn good, right? 😉

I was worried people would be disappointed not to get a real photo (so vain), but so far the feedback from our friends and family has been totally positive. (To be fair, I did end up including a small photo of Sam holding the “It’s a Girl” banner on the back.) I sent my cards out earlier than I ever have this year (which isn’t really saying much because I’m usually scrambling to get them done and in the mail by the 22nd or 23rd), and I loved the versatility of working with a digital file.  I plan to print some of the plain image on notecards to use all year (or at least until March) and even shrunk this image down teeny-tiny and made my own return address labels with it too.  So fun.  We’ll likely go back to a more traditional card next year, but this was a nice change and took a little stress off of me this time!

If you haven’t ordered Christmas cards yet – and are feeling guilty about it – IT’S NOT TOO LATE!  Rachel said she’d be willing to work with you if you send her a direct message and can likely get you a digital file ASAP.  (Also, I just saw on the Vistaprint website that cards are 50% off and can still be ordered in time for Christmas!)  If you’re interested in getting one of these portraits for yourself or to give as a gift – they would make an AWESOME wedding or new baby gift later on too, Rachel is offering 10% off with the coupon code THEBRITISHRULEFRIEND at checkout. You can see more of her adorable work in her Etsy shop or on her blog at www.thebritishrule.com (SUPER cute blog). 

Anyway, MERRY CHRISTMAS!  I hope you and yours have a wonderful week full of rest, laughter, beauty, and the people you love!  I’m going to take a little break to soak up all of those things myself, and I’ll be back after Christmas with regularly scheduled programming and some of my thoughts/goals/changes for 2015 – it’s sure to be a big year. 🙂

Love and joy to you all,

E

* This post isn’t paid or sponsored in any way, I just really liked Rachel’s work and like to pass on good finds! I did use the coupon code myself to get 10% off, but that’s all.

** If you’ve sent me an email or left a comment on the blog in the last, oh, six months, I’m going to try REALLY hard to catch up and respond over the next couple of weeks.  Please know how much I love and appreciate each of you – even if I’m not always good at showing it – and have enjoyed the dialogue in the comments SO much lately!!