Christmas Cards

Happy Tuesday!

Today is like my THURSDAY because tomorrow is my last day of work for this week! Can't wait! My mom arrives on Thursday night and I am sooooooo ready for some Christmas QT with her!

I think I have mentioned on here before that I love me some Christmas cards. I am just nerdy like that, what can I say?

We take our picture every year on Thanksgiving day. This year we were in Knoxville with my dad, so he took our picture. I think it turned out really cute!

I ordered the cards from CardsDirect.com.

I have REALLY been happy with these cards. They are nice, high-quality paper. Cards Direct has about a thousand paper choices to choose from (different weights, glossy, matte, recycled, etc.). I chose one who's price point was somewhere in the middle and this is what we wound up with!
Another reason I chose this site to get my cards was because they have a TON of cute fonts to choose from. Font is important here, people.

I also had our return address printed on the back of the cards (again, in any font you want!) for an small extra fee. This way all we had to do was stuff, lick, and stamp and we were good to go!

I got 100 cards, 100 gold-lined-return-address-printed envelopes, and shipping all for about $89. My goal every year is to keep our cards under $1 per card, so this was right on the money.

We also get tons of cards from other friends and family members. I love getting colorful cards in the mail every day with fat, pretty babies on them! Each year when I'm taking down the Christmas decorations I put all the cards I get from the year in a big Ziploc bag. Then the next year, I put them out around the house. I think it's fun to look back and see how the babies have grown and families have changed.

Here's the 2008 cards in our living room:

And the 2009 cards are in the TV room. I think it's just a fun conversation piece to have them scattered out in a plate or tray.

With the cards I get for the current year, I put them out on display too.

When you walk through our kitchen into the dining room, this is what you see. There is a swinging door that separates the kitchin and dining room, but we pretty much never close it.

Then there are these two doors that separate the dining room and living room. They never close, either. So I chose this spot to display the 2010 cards. I just put a big, fat, red, velvet ribbon down the front. These doors are shutter-style, so I just secured them on the back with some tape.

Then stuck the cards up there with mini clothes pins that I got in the office section of Wal-Mart. You could definitely spruce this up if you used full sized pins and put glitter on them or something. But I like the simplicity of smaller, plain ones.

This is standing at the dining room window looking into the living room. Sorry these pictures aren't great but the room is not big enough for me to get a good angle.

There isn't enough room on the doors for all the cards, so a few live on the frige. Here are a couple of my favorites...

Our neighbor friend Webb! He is almost 7 years old, but he looks like he's 20 in this picture. Stresses me out he is growing up so fast!

And I might be a little bias, but THIS is the most precious card we've gotten:

Crazy Lilly Whit! I gave her that sweet dress last year for Christmas. Love her stinker face...she is a riot. Lots of people think she looks like Tom...what do yall think?

If I could, I would send all of you our Christmas card in real life!!! I hope you and your family have a wonderful and blessed Christmas season....

Joy to the World, the Savior reigns!

Let men their songs employ;

While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains

Repeat the sounding joy,

Repeat the sounding joy,

Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy!