I love getting the mail the few weeks before Christmas through the week of New Years.  Every few days another photo card arrives with smiling faces of people I love and care for.  I marvel at how much the kiddos have grown for my friends who live across the country (and truth be told, sometimes my friends who live locally) that I don’t get to see very often.  I enjoy reading the snippets of life that are shared in short paragraphs on the back.  My fridge is covered with beautiful reminders of so many wonderful people.

Last year from June to December, we dealt with news of one bad health report after another on both sides of the family, so I’m just now getting caught up on a few things, my blog included.   This morning I changed out my photos from 2015 for 2016 on the fridge.  The placement always reminds me of a game of Tetris – trying to fit the different sized and shaped cards together to maximize the number of visible photos in the space that is available.

I created our first photo Christmas card 2 Christmases ago in 2015.  Doing so was something I had wanted to do for a long time, but I struggled for many years about sending a card that only has my husband and myself on it.  I had fallen into the trap of thinking that no one would be interested in card without kiddos on it.  We’re also not good at taking pictures of ourselves or our lives, so I felt like I didn’t have much content to pull from.  Two years ago we took a week-long road trip and had taken photos at many distinct locations, so I felt like I finally had something worth sending out.  Last year, I decided that it didn’t matter if we didn’t have cute kids to put on a card; that the people who are on my Christmas card list would be happy to see just our two faces.  I got as far as finding a photographer in November, and then some more “life” happened and I never got an appointment booked, so I sent out a letter instead of a photo.

While a letter is a great way to document your history from the year, I realized that it does not provide a visual snapshot of what your life actually “looks” like, especially for the people we don’t physically see often.  For us, at this point, that means a few more fine lines and gray hairs (at least for JJ – I hide my gray hair!). My goal for this year is to be more intentional about snapping a few pix here and there to document some of the high points of the year, not just to create a Christmas card, but to have a touch point to which to return to track our history for ourselves, even if they are not all perfectly posed. (I’d post one today, but as I write, JJ is asleep after working 24 hours straight).

So, help keep me accountable.  Here’s to a few more smiling snapshots of our own.  I’d love to see your pix too!