I'm not really sure when the whole tradition of sending out a family picture with your Christmas cards started, but my family has always participated. When I was young, my mom would get my brother and I gussied up and take us to Deuel's, the local photography studio in my hometown, to have our Christmas card picture taken. I was responsible for smiling and sitting patiently while the friendly photog and staff attempted to coax a smile from my brother while he proceeded to scream bloody murder, pitch massive fits, pee himself, or barf on me (or any combination of those).
As we got older, the Christmas card picture evolved to feature our entire family. We've done every trendy pose under the sun....on a beach in all white and khaki, in front of a fireplace, in the front yard of our house in a pile of leaves, etc. Every year starting in about August, anytime a photo is being taken of us, it never fails that someone says "Let's try to look good...this could be the Christmas card!"
This year our picture was taken on a farm. It's a pretty decent shot (i.e. nobody's eyes are closed and all flies are zipped...I think). I was actually planning to participate in a promotion Shutterfly is doing for bloggers who post about its products in order to receive 50 free Holiday Cards. My mom and I were playing around on Shutterfly after Thanksgiving and we decided to go ahead and order the card we created on there. It was so easy to upload our image and complete our card that my mom didn't want to wait for the free promo code.
Here are a couple of the cute options available to you on Shutterfly. Since we were so happy with the results of our card, I decided to post about it and share the love with one of you. All I have to do is upload a link from this post to Shutterfly and they will send me a promo code. All you have to do is leave a comment on this post and I'll select one winner for the 50 free cards. Any takers? I’ll try to get the code asap so you can create and order your free cards! The turnaround is pretty quick so you should have plenty of time!