My family loves getting the onslaught of photo holiday cards every year from all of our friends and family from near and far.  It has become a tradition that we all look forward to.  I have never thrown out one of these treasured photo cards.

Each year, when I open up all the containers of holiday trimmings, there is the one that holds those treasured holiday photo cards.  Within the next few days, our entire family gathers around; the kids with their hot chocolates, my hubby and I with our wine and we pour over the pictures and look at how everyone has changed from year to year.  There are always lots of laughs and “oh my gosh, look how big they are now” and “that’s a scary one!”  I even include my own children’s holiday photo cards that we have sent through the years.  It has become a ritual we all look forward to each season.

We keep all the old photo cards in a basket on a table and as we get the new holiday photo cards, we ooh and ahh over them and hang them around the house.  At the end of the season, when it is time to take down all the holiday decorations, we add the current year’s photo Christmas cards to the basket to await the next year’s opening.

Have you ever gone on vacation, come home, downloaded all your photos onto the computer, and then promptly forgot about them? Then comes the holidays and you run around like a chicken without a head trying to set everyone up for a family photo for the annual photo Christmas cards.

Why not take out those photos from family vacations for a second look. Some of the most natural and candid pictures are taken during a fun filled vacation. Whether it’s everyone covered in sand lounging on a beach, or with backpacks hiking up a trail. The fact remains, your family photo portrays the family doing what they love most. Who cares if they’re not all dressed up in their holiday best with a Santa hat? Your photo card, using your vacation shot, will portray the family in the best possible light.

I recently went on a vacation to Ireland. While I have been there before, it had been a very long time between trips. Besides touring some of the most photogenic places on earth, I also visited my Grannie’s cottage where my mother grew up and where I took my first steps as a baby. Grannie and Mom are long gone, but the cottage has been restored and two artists are now living there. They were very gracious and invited us in to see what had been done. I took a photo of the outside of the cottage to remember it when I returned home. It came out so well that I’m going to use that vacation photo shot for my holiday photo card order.

Promises, promises, promises.  This is what I get from my family when I ask for recent digital family photos.  My son, daughter in law and two grandchildren moved to North Carolina several years ago, and, although we exchange visits yearly, usually during the summer months when the grandchildren have vacation from school, and chat regularly, I miss not seeing them frequently.  Patrick and Grace play in the school band, he the trumpet and she the clarinet, and they often participate at special events.  Although Mom and/or Dad take photos during these events, they are not really good at sending a simple email with the images for “Grandma”. Of course, when I remind them, what do you think I get?   Promises, promises, promises.

Fortunately, my family follows up on their “promises”, that is to say, they follow up on their promises once a year.  I do indeed look forward to the very beautiful photo Christmas cards they send with pictures of the kids.  I finally get to see what they have been doing throughout the year in the presence of the photos.  It was worth waiting for them to see how attractive they look in their dress uniforms while performing in a special band event; it was worth waiting for the photos to see them clearing the colorful leaves in the yard during the fall season as well as sitting in a tree they just climbed; it was worth waiting for the photos to see them holding their pups, Nellie the poodle and Lily the maltese. I can’t wait for next year!

I am completely computered out!  At work, I am on a computer from the time I get there until I sign off at closing time, more than seven hours each day.  At home after work, I enjoy perusing the internet, reading emails, going on Facebook, viewing You Tube videos, reading about current events on various news websites, ordering photo Christmas cards—you name it, I’ve probably been there at one time or another, for hours on end.

So the other day I was installing a new program on my computer at home and, following the program’s directions, I hit “ok” to restart the computer.  Lo and behold, the computer rebooted, got just past the Windows XP logo screen, and rebooted again.  And again.  And again.  And again.  Continuously.  Oh-oh!  What to do, what to do?

After visiting a computer-help forum using a different computer in the house (we have several!) where I asked for help concerning my rebooting issue, I patiently waited for a response from one of the ‘geeks”.  While waiting, I decided to go back to a “restore point”—basically, a process by which a computer can be instructed to go back to a specific date some time in the past when it was working okay and there were no problems.  After quite a few hours and four failed attempts at going back to four previous dates, the answer came back from my friend on the forum website: I probably have a virus and I should run a scan.  Well, duh!  That would be easy to do if I could get the computer to the desktop to do the scan!

The next step was to describe my problem the next day to a couple of the “techies” at work, who suggested doing a “scan now”, a “boot time scan” and checking for a corrupt boot file, all while the computer is in “safe mode”.   Unfortunately, none of these possible fixes were able to be performed.  Now that I was starting to get really ticked off, I began to have thoughts as to whether I should get a new PC, a refurbished one or, perhaps, just give the current one a good kick in the tower.  I was spending so much time with the PC that I wondered if my wife was worried that we (me and the Compaq Presario) were beginning to have a relationship.

Anyway, another alternative fix was to—as a last resort–access the computer’s “System Recovery” process, which reverts the PC all the way back to the way it was when it was first purchased—in my case, seven years earlier.   Not wanting to do something that drastic, I tried one last time to see if the constant rebooting would still occur.  Upon leaving safe mode (going back into dangerous mode) and hitting the restart button, the computer did not reboot! However, a bright and beautiful blue screen appeared with the words, “FATAL SYSTEM ERROR”.  Yikes! Well, that did it.

I decided to go back to the beginning of the PC’s existence, which usually gets rid of an offending virus and provides the user with, basically, a clean hard drive and an almost like-new computer.   Once that was accomplished (another half an hour), it was time to again acquire the necessary virus and firewall programs, to reinstall and configure programs that needed reinstalling, and downloading a better “Service Pack” for added protection and security.  After almost seven hours (basically, another full work day), I was finished with the reconfiguring and had a computer that was able to access the desktop, programs, pictures and the internet, without having to suffer through the PC  being in a continuous reboot loop.

And, less than seven hours after leaving my home machine, here I am at work—again on a computer—wondering when I need to order those photo Christmas cards!

My husband is a supervisor in his company, and that means he has to constantly ensure that his staff’s performance, both individually and as a group, is at par with what is expected. He happened to express how he happy he was with his colleagues’ cooperation and input. Since I work for a card company I suggested that he might like to order some corporate holiday cards for his coworkers to show his appreciation. It is always good to make your staff feel like valued contributors, even in a well-oiled production system. True, his company has the usual Christmas party, raffles and so on. Nevertheless, I pointed out that giving out holiday cards to employees within the company would be seen as an additional token of appreciation.

My husband was dubious, but he brought it up in his next meeting with his director. To his surprise, his director liked the idea very much. Apparently, several years ago he had mentored someone who since then sends him Christmas cards every year, and he had actually come to look forward to them. He agreed, therefore, that it is a wonderful way to show appreciation within a corporate setup. Naturally, my company was suggested, and the cards went over so well that they ordered business Christmas cards again this year! Not only that, the directors of other groups within the company caught on to this trend and were ordering cards for their staff as well.

It certainly feels good to know that my casual suggestion had inadvertently set into motion a “corporate tradition”!

It has become a tradition in our family to go to shore every year. If you are not from New Jersey, the shore = the beach. My daughter and I take her two children, my grandchildren, for a week of fun, sun and board walking. If you haven’t noticed we do not invite the men folk, it’s a vacation not a “doing the same work in a different place” event which my daughter and I quickly learned the first time we invited our husbands. When we get home we show them our vacation photos and they show about as much interest as they do when we tell them about a cute hat we found or a new chicken recipe! They have not been in the vacation photos for years now and I don’t think they really care; they both have a week of bachelorhood and they are so glad to see us when we get home they can’t help but ask if we brought home any food.

My daughter Beth would love to use these great family vacation photos as her photo Christmas cards each year but she is missing part of the family. Also, she and kids are all tanned and John is pale because he spent his time away from the family watching the Mets play! We were determined to correct this once and for all. My husband and I offered to take the grandchildren for a weekend so Beth and John could have a weekend away at the shore and take as many vacation photos as they wanted. So everyone gets a nice vacation, and we all get beautiful Christmas cards!

Every holiday season we spend time as a family looking through hundreds upon hundreds of pictures saved on the family PC.  The reason: someone in our household must be good at taking digital photos to send out to friends and family!

Sure enough, every year it seems to be our kids who take the best pictures.  I am not sure if it is the angle of the picture due to their height, the focal point of the picture from the perspective of a youngster, or the steady hand of a child. (Dad, your pictures are all fuzzy.  You shake the camera too much!)

It seems no matter the technological advances of a camera, I cannot take a picture on par with my kids.  Even my wife does not take a picture worthy of putting on photo Christmas cards. (According to the kids anyway.)

So once again this holiday season, we are sending out our photo holiday cards with a picture taken by the kids.  As bad as our pictures can be, it sure is nice to be in the age of taking digital photos.  For every fifty pictures I take, one or two are good.  I can’t imagine paying to develop all those sub-par prints in this economy!

I love receiving photo holiday cards and love to send them, but getting that perfect picture of my children and our dog is not the easiest thing to do. First of all, getting a teenage boy to pose for a photo with his little brother without poking him or making faces or being disruptive in some sort of way is a bit challenging. Then, if you do happen to get lucky and are able to capture a moment where no one is being pinched and the dog is not licking someone’s face, is it a photo that the entire family can agree on?

Usually I like to use one beautiful photo in our family photo cards. The truth is, it’s not possible to capture the essence of a family in a single photo, and we can never all agree on one photo. So, this year, I have selected a collage photo card where I can use many photos of the family.

I used a photo of my teenager playing basketball, looking like the star athlete, one of my six year old in his Darth Vader costume, one of the dog in the snow, a vacation photo with the entire family and one that includes the boys and the dog, where the dog is licking his paw, my teenager is making a face and my six year old is smiling happily unaware of what’s going on around him.

I love the way it turned out. It gives a small glimpse into our family life and the beautiful personalities of each of us. I love looking back at our family photo cards from past years. I’ll be happy to add this one to the collection. I think it may turn out to be my favorite!

Every year, I anticipate receiving Christmas cards from my friends and family. Beginning around Thanksgiving, I excitedly check my mailbox when I return home from work. I love finding cards in all different colored envelopes, sometimes adorned with stickers and glitter. I always stop myself from reading the return address on the envelopes; I like to read the card first and then see who it’s from. However, by now, the handwriting of my address instantaneously gives that surprise away! I know I’m appreciated by those whom I love and care for, but I still love to receive cards and decorate my front door with them. Besides being valued by family and friends, who else should I feel appreciated by? My company of course! After putting in most of your time and commitment into your job, small recognition goes a long way. That’s why it’s super important for companies to send out/hand out business holiday cards. I know I like to be remembered, and what better time to show your employees you care and value their work other than the holidays?!

Christmas cards are a long American tradition. I make sure to send cards out to all of those I care about, as well as those who help make my days a little brighter. I handwrite little notes of appreciation to my hairdresser, mailman, and Sonia, the woman who has my coffee ready to go first thing she sees me walking into the local coffee shop. Christmas cards extend thanks far beyond a phone call or simple, “Merry Christmas” greeting to someone as you pass them on the street. I know I like to display my cards and reread them, especially on days where I could use a heartfelt smile. I truly believe that by sending cards to your employees and others who do good in your life is well worth the investment. Don’t you?

The best idea I ever had was when I received some pictures from my niece, she is 10 years old and has her own digital camera. I must add she is very technologically savvy, as most youngsters are today. She was on a camping trip with her Girl Scout troop and snapped numerous pictures, uploaded them to an email and sent them to me. There were pictures of her and all her friends laughing, cooking, hiking and sleeping. But the ones that really caught my attention were a few that were of the sunset and sunrise. Some were taken while hiking that I thought might work for my photo Christmas cards this year since they were in the woods.

The nature photos were so beautiful. She said her guide advised they quietly walk up a labeled path and then go off the trail just a short way when they stumbled upon a mother doe with her two babies that looked like they were sleeping. The guide must have known this was a special spot and my niece was thrilled beyond belief! There were about 25 shots of those deer, but then they moved on and many others were absolutely gorgeous. It didn’t take me very long to decide which I would use for my photo cards this year.  It saved me from having to get the dog in holiday gear. My niece was so excited when I asked her if I could use it and to know her picture will be sent to all my friends and all our family.