Epic Christmas Card Tradition – Year 1
I am all about traditions. I love what they represent and I love having something special between my husband and I that other people might not have. I’ve always wanted to be able to send out a family Christmas card and couldn’t wait until I got married so I could so.
Our first Christmas got away from us, but right after that is when I decided that going forward, each year our Christmas card was going to be something ridiculous – AND it would always feature out cat. We’re not your typical people. We’re awkward and we’re artsy and we’re different, so our Christmas card should reflect that!
DETERMINED TO MAKE IT HAPPEN
I made sure time didn’t get away from us our second year of marriage. Right after Thanksgiving, I ordered us the craziest cat-themed ugly Christmas sweaters Amazon had to offer. I wanted to recreate those hilariously awful and awkward 90’s glamour photos. You know the ones – black (or laser show) backdrop, the people all looking off into space, floating feathered cut outs of people or pets…
Shortly after my husband and I set aside an afternoon and turned out living room into a makeshift studio, 8-foot high fabric backdrop and four studio lights included.
THE MAKING OF
Because I didn’t want to mess around with the timer on the camera and possibly get bad results – not to mention the time it would take constantly running back and forth until we got a picture we liked – we took each other’s photos separately, which I later combined in Photoshop.
So, putting our best most awkward face forward, we started shooting! Erik’s part was a breeze. We had him photographed in a couple of minutes. My part was a little more difficult because I had the honor of holding our cat, Holly. My vision included me holding her but also having a giant cut out of her face in the corner of the card.
On Amazon I found the most ridiculous cat collar that matched our sweaters perfectly! Holly is a little scared of everything, so the second I put the big, fluffy collar on her, she knew something was up. It took awhile, but I held her while Erik clicked away. She has a different expression in each shot, and it was very difficult trying to choose the funniest one for the card. We ended up choosing one where she is looking off into space with a terrified look on her face since it juxtaposed so nicely with our stupidly happy grins.
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
The creation of the card was more difficult than I anticipated. I have high standards for myself to begin with. Couple that with the fact that this was going to be seen by a hundred people and you get a major case of perfectionism. This was the debut of our tradition that will last years to come. It had to be perfect and set a precedent.
Getting the initial composition wasn’t the hardest part of the process since I already had an idea in mind. It was the finishing touches that were the really difficult part. To add words, or not to add words? Plain black background, laser background, or Christmas background? Little design decisions that would add up to create the overall feel and takeaway of the card.
I ended up including a holiday greeting on the front. The graphic designer part of me chose two of my least favorite fonts – Papyrus, because it’s awful, and Scriptina, because it’s so overused. I’ve also never been a fan of the red and green color combination. However, I thought that including it might up the cheesiness a bit.
Fun fact: I was initially not a fan of the cartoon string of lights in the upper corner – that was Erik’s idea. He added the glow and determined their placement. At the time, I thought it might have been a little too much. I thought it took away from how I wanted to card to feel based on the vision I had. I still wasn’t sure how I felt about it all the way up until the day we sent our cards.
POSITIVE FEEDBACK
However, the feedback was better than I could have hoped for. Everyone seemed to love it and we got tons of compliments. If they didn’t say they loved it, they were in the group that just completely ignored it / possibly didn’t understand it.
The feedback definitely made me excited to get started on Christmas 2019’s card. I hope it’s on par with 2018!