Merry Christ­mas and Happy Hol­i­days to every­one!  I hope you had a great hol­i­day season.

Jason’s sis­ter, Tera, from Bless­ings Pho­tog­ra­phy did our card.  I love it!

My first thought is that I love Christ­mas cards! I look for­ward to the week­end after Thanks­giv­ing, because my cousin’s wife usu­ally sends us our first card either Fri­day or Sat­ur­day. I love read­ing the let­ters and see­ing how peo­ple have changed, either their looks or their lives. I also like hav­ing a chance to recon­nect a lit­tle with all of our friends and family.

Then, I started putting ours together. It wasn’t the time or the effort that it took that made me start think­ing about Christ­mas cards. I started won­der­ing just how many resources were used to cre­ate and deliver a card. Then, I won­dered what peo­ple do with them after Christ­mas is over. I keep mine, but I don’t know if every­one else does.

So, I thought back to the begin­ning of our Christ­mas cards, and here is what I came up with. First, I ordered the boys’ clothes off the inter­net for the pic­tures. Of course, their clothes are made in China. Ship­ping to US and to me. Then, we drove 70 miles (each way) to my sister-in-law’s house for the pic­tures. Then, we drove another 140 miles to pick up the pic­tures. That’s almost a tank of gas for us. After that, I drove 20 miles (ten each way) to pick out Christ­mas cards. They, too, were made in China. I am not tak­ing into account the address labels or return labels, because I didn’t make spe­cial trips any­where for them, but using 85 of them on our Christ­mas cards means that we won’t be using them on 85 let­ters in the future.

I know that paper will break down, but if half of the peo­ple throw away the cards, then it seems to me that I have used quite a few resources for just a few days of enjoy­ment. I could send the cards out before the week of Christ­mas, and then peo­ple would be able to enjoy them for 3 weeks, but that’s another topic for another day.

Jason and I were talk­ing the other night, and we have some ideas for changes in our lifestyle for 2009, so don’t be sur­prised if Christ­mas cards are one of the things that we change. I love love LOVE send­ing and receiv­ing them, so please don’t think I’m say­ing any­thing else. I am cur­rently brain­storm­ing ways to make that a more envi­ron­men­tally friendly process.

Right now, I’m sup­posed to be work­ing on our Christ­mas cards. I am slowly mov­ing through our huge list of names to get the cards put together and later add the pic­ture to the cards. For some rea­son, it seems like this year the cards are much more labor intense than usual. Maybe I’m just slower. That could be it.

I keep think­ing of more and more peo­ple I’d like to send the cards to. If you were expect­ing a card and didn’t get one, can I blame it on the fact that A woke up at 4:45 this morn­ing? He went back to sleep, but I didn’t. No per­sonal offense intended.