It’s hard to believe it’s already that time of year! The Christmas season is rapidly approaching. I’m not one to decorate or listen to Christmas music until after Thanksgiving, but I do like to get a plan going for our Christmas cards. Sending and receiving cards is one of my favorite holiday traditions! I personally like sending photo cards, and every year I look forward to our Christmas photo session. I just love the entire process from choosing the outfits, taking the pictures, and designing the layout of the card to hand addressing them while sipping hot cocoa and watching a Hallmark Christmas movie. Like I said……it’s one of my absolute favorite holiday traditions!
Last year I put together a quick little photo backdrop and ended up getting some really fun shots of the kids for the cards we sent. The year before that I took the kids to an old white brick building and had some fun pretending to be a photographer. I still love the simple and sweet cards we sent out that year.
Since the past two years we’ve sent cards with pictures of just the kids, I thought this year it would be nice to send one with a photo of all four of us. Though that can be a tall order without a professional photographer, somehow I managed to wrangle everyone together before the sun set yesterday and put my tripod to good use. To my surprise we managed to capture one that is decent enough to use for this year’s Christmas card.
For the clothing, I decided to go with a navy and red color combo because well, have you met me? You know that’s my fav color combo, and when I finally get around to framing a few of these pics they’ll work great with the decor in our home.
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| red sweater | plaid jeans | red boots | blue sweater | grey cords | brown boots |
I just can’t even handle the cuteness of these outfits! Can’t. even. handle. And I love that they aren’t really Christmas-y, so they can wear them all winter long.
We attempted to get one of all four of us on the steps of the kids’ clubhouse, but let’s just say……it did not go well. 😉 It’s a good idea to try lots of different things, so you have plenty of options when you sit down to edit your photos and create your card.
An inexpensive tripod is a nice thing to have on hand; and for moms like myself who are usually behind the camera, it’s one of the only ways to get yourself in the picture. I don’t have a remote; I just set the timer and then run like the wind…….it’s a workout that maybe one day I’ll capture on camera for you. 😉 Or maybe one day I’ll buy a remote…..that would be a nice stocking stuffer.
Surely a professional photographer would have done a much better job, but really it’s not about taking the perfect photo it’s about capturing something special.
I used Minted to create and print our cards this year. Their site is so easy to use!
Have you thought about your Christmas cards yet? Do you like to play photographer in your back yard too?
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such a beautiful family!!!! XOXO