¡Christmas Traditions!

During the boys' nap time yesterday afternoon, I created a truly superb Christmas music playlist, if I do say so myself.  I know Thanksgiving hasn't even passed yet (and I promise I won't forget to write about it on ye olde blog), but I just couldn't help myself.  Christmas music puts me in the best mood.  Even when everything else is complete chaos, Nat King Cole's dulcet tones have a completely calming effect.

With Christmas on my mind, I'm starting to think about our family Christmas cards.  Here's what our card looked like last year:

Time for new family pictures!  Bear has grown a ton and poor Adric isn't even in them!  It feels like these pictures were taken just yesterday, but I wasn't even pregnant then.  So much changes in a year.  We've got plans to do some new family pictures soon.  (I'm so excited for the boys to wear their new outfits!)

As soon as I get the pictures, I'm going to rush to the Shutterfly website and whip up some cards to send out. We used Shutterfly last year and I was so happy with how the cards turned out.

What I especially love about Shutterfly is the contemporary feel of their designs.  Generally I think there is more attention to detail with Shutterfly's card designs than what you find at the big box stores.  They even get some of my favorite bloggers to do designs for them!  I do love the one hour waits at local stores, but their designs are usually more simple.  Shutterfly is conscientious of current trends.

This has been such a wonderful year for our family, full of countless blessings.  Shutterfly has great cards where you can share some of the highlights of the year:

They also have personalized address labels and thank you cards!  When Bear gets older I want to have him write thank you notes after Christmas to practice both his writing and his sense of gratitude.  :)

I could spend hours playing around with all of the different card designs.  So many to choose from!  Are you sending out cards this year?

(Disclosure: I wrote this post as a participant in Shutterfly's 2011 Holiday Promotion.  I received a set of photo cards in exchange for reviewing their holiday collection.  All opinions are my own.)