I was having an email conversation with Laura of Coptic Dad and Mom about various things and we got on the subject of Christmas cards. She was saying that she’d love to have a card tradition and while I was telling her about how I do mine, I realized that this might be a good blog post. I’m not quite as amazing at writing these posts as Kathryn of Team Whitaker is, but I’ll give it a try. 🙂

The Cards: My hand gets crampy when I do a lot of writing (*shakes aching fist at fibromyalgia*) so I mainly stick to photo cards. I normally use Shutterfly because I’ve gotten great deals from them and I can get a chunk of my cards free because of Pampers Rewards points. If I don’t use those points, Shutterfly usually gives codes for sales and stuff that actually knock my purchase price down a bit. They also tend to fill orders pretty quickly. Another good alternative is the Costco Photo Center which has very reasonable prices. Had I not had the Pampers Rewards points, I probably would have gone with them because of the price. With both Costco Photo Center and Shutterfly, you can pick a template, insert photos, and customize your message. This part saves my aching hands from having to sign cards and write all the messages as well as providing the photo that shows your kiddos or your cats off to your family and friends.

If you love to write cards, Moo might be a good option for you. You can personalize the insides to say whatever you want them to say.

Address Labels: I have a BIG Excel file with all my addresses in it which I store on my cloud. It’s useful other times of the year as well when I need an address for a card or a baby shower present or whatever. Avery makes templates that you can download to create your address labels and I generally do that, sticking as close as I can to the design of my card. (Shutterfly offers matching address labels but they’re too pricey for the amount I need.) In order to make the labels, I go into Word and do a mail merge which is not all that hard to do if you know where everything is supposed to go. Thankfully, there’s a wizard that talks you through all of it. Once labels are made, I print them

Postage: It’s a necessary evil. Some post offices have kiosks where you can buy stamps from a machine or make shipping labels for a package. Take full advantage of those as they are usually not busy and the line to get to the counter moves at a glacial pace.

Assembling: Once I have the stamps, the cards, and the labels, I put it together assembly-line style. I aim to do this when Daniel is at school or otherwise occupied. If I have any choice in the matter, I take the whole thing to $tarbux and put on YouTube videos or a movie from Netflix that I have always wanted to see to have something to watch while I work. One indispensable product is an envelope moistener for sealing the envelopes. I got one at Staples two years ago and it was the best $1.25 I have ever spent. Once the envelopes are stuffed, labels attached, and everything has postage, I walk around the corner to the post office and dump them in the bin.

So that’s how I do it. If you want to get cards out and are stuck, email me — I’d be happy to help. I’m jen (at) grace-filled (dot) net.