Every year, more and more parents question whether to bother sending out holiday cards showing a photograph of their family. There are many reasons why someone would choose not to bother. Lack of time, the expense, it’s too much work, etc.

While I’m not here to convince you otherwise, I will offer some suggestions so you can overcome some of the most common struggles with Holiday Cards this season and hopefully make the experience something you enjoy instead of dread. So if you’re on the fence about holiday cards this year, keep reading!

Holiday Cards take too long

In today’s DIY culture, we feel that it’s worth saving a few bucks and doing things ourselves. The result of which is that holiday cards take forever to make, label, stamp, and send out. Pair that with a long list of family and friends, and you have the makings of an endless time-suck that nobody needs. No wonder most people give up before they even start!

One of the best solutions for the “lack of time” problem is to have a card printing service take care of the work for you. Most of the printing companies like Minted or Tiny Prints have started offering envelope addressing and even stamping and mailing of cards. If you wait until a certain time of year, you might even get those extras for free. But even at a few cents per card, it might be worth uploading your address book and having someone else take care of the most time-consuming aspect of getting the cards out.

The second part of it is the design process. I personally feel that printing companies make this super easy with online design software that anyone can use to drop in their family photos into an already-designed card. The hard and lengthy task is actually picking a design you like, when there are literally hundreds to choose from. My suggestion is to keep it simple and stick with one or two photos instead of going overboard with five or six. I know you love your kids and want to show them off, but for the love of God, make it easy for yourself - pick your favorite family portrait (and I do suggest being in the photo as parents!) and put that on the front. Then a funny or more candid shot on the back. Super easy!

And finally, the real reason holiday cards take forever is because we are so terrible at making decisions without being perfectionists.

Your card is just as good if you spend 10 minutes on it, or 100 minutes. It doesn’t actually get better if you go back and forth on which image to use, what text should be there, which design is best, or what color to choose. In the end, most of that doesn’t really matter. Any image of your family is going to be great. A greeting doesn’t have to be to be the most profound thing the recipient will read that year. And a blue will look just as good as the red. So make a decision, don’t question it, and move on!

Holiday Cards are too expensive

Holiday cards can certainly be expensive. If you get letterpress cards, they can run about $3.00 per card, but simpler printed cards on regular paper stock can be less than $1.00 each. If you think about greetings cards that you might buy at a regular stationary store, that’s about as cheap as it gets. So yes, if you add all those extra features like rounded corners, custom foil, or a silhouette cutout shape, the extras can add up to a large price tag. Once again, keeping things simple will keep the costs in check too.

More often than not, though, it’s our own desire to have better or prettier cards than someone else that’s driving our need to customize and upgrade to the point of runaway costs. And that’s not the fault of of anyone but yourself. Take a step back and evaluate the real reason you want the fancy paper or a shimmer finish. If you’re only doing it so you can be better than someone else, I suggest taking a long hard look at your motivation and deciding whether that’s something you want to follow.

Holiday Cards are wasteful

I totally get the reason for not wanting to send out holiday cards because using paper is wasteful and bad for the environment. Not to mention that most of those cards will end up in the trash bin at the end anyway. The perfect solution for this dilemma is to send a virtual holiday card! I have a friend who sends a digital card every year using Paperless Post and it’s always nice to get it in my inbox. Quite honestly, the experience of opening and viewing her card isn’t all that different from a printed version. I still get excited to see it and feel joy when I read the enclosed message. It’s a great way to stay connected and share her family’s holiday greeting without the need to harm more trees, and that’s 100% an option for you too!

In the end, how we approach holiday cards is going to define our experience with them.

If we expect the process to be hard, troublesome, and time consuming, it absolutely will be. However, if we approach holiday cards as a way to reach out to our family and friends, spread a bit of love and joy (whether that’s to their physical mailbox or digital inbox), we are going to appreciate the process a lot more. And being able to enjoy the process is going to make everything a lot better!

I hope you found this post helpful and I personally know how great family portraits make putting a holiday card together a lot more enjoyable as a process. If you’ve been thinking about getting family photos done, feel free to click below to learn more.