My Christmas Card Evolution

(Christmas card, 2019)

As kids, my sister and I made lots of cards.  Relatives' birthdays, Christmas, and other special occasions meant bringing out the colored pencils, crayons and paint.  I remember afternoons spent at the kitchen table choosing special paper from my mother's collection and personalizing it with colored pencil drawings under my mother's guiding eye.

(1980s)

I stopped making cards by the time I was in college.  I didn't have the time or inclination to send my friends individually made cards.  It took a postage increase, rising to 15 cents in 1980 when Bill and I were early married and counting pennies, that prompted me to remember how economical homemade Christmas cards could be, drawing one original and making any number of xerox copies.

(1987)

With pen and ink, I drew my original including an inside "Merry Christmas" done with the swirl of a calligraphy pen.  I took the picture on its 8.5 x 11 paper to my copy center.  In the 80s, copying meant black and white on "xerox" paper.

Eventually, I decided to add a little color.  Going back to my childhood tools, I bought some art pencils and individually colored each of the roughly 35 black-and-white pen-and-ink copies that I would send.

As time went on, color copying became available, but it was very expensive. By 1990, postage had gone up to 25 cents!   I wasn't about to go crazy making costly color copies.  I continued to color my own for a few more years until the price came down.

As with most technology, the cost of color copies eventually became competitive.  Bill bought me watercolor paints for my birthday, and I was off and running in full color!

(2002)

My cards became less about cost and more about tradition. I had fun finding a coordinating quote for the inside of the card which I began including along with the painted "Merry Christmas" greeting in a swirl of red.

(2005)

Coming up with a subject for the card picture became my biggest challenge.  Ideas came from books, magazines, cards I received, or my own photographs.  One year, I didn't have a subject that interested me.  I decided to buy cards for a change.  I was surprised by the response. "I missed your homemade card" or "You didn't make a card this year," friends said in dismay.  Finding a new idea that pleases me continues to be a challenge but I haven't taken a year off since.

(2010)

Best is when I have a subject in mind long before the holiday season arrives.  Ideally, I paint the picture in the fall, while sitting at the porch table. It's nice to know that it's ready when I need it.

(2009)

One year I painted my card original but wasn't happy with it.  I didn't have another idea, and I didn't want to spend time drawing something else, so I took the painted original to the copy shop and had it printed even though I didn't like it.  When the time came to address the envelopes, I couldn't send the card out. It just wasn't good enough. I cut all of the cards up for scrap paper.

But I still needed a card to send.  I looked through my drawings from previous years, and sent out copies of them. No one said, "Didn't I receive that card one other year?"  Anyway, how bad is a repeat?  Bringing out past favorites is now my back-up plan, should Christmas-card-painter's-block ever haunt me again.

(2008)

 
I made another change a few years ago.  Instead of painting a watercolor background on the paper, I decided to layer colored paper.  This was such a simple idea, but something I hadn't thought of doing before.

(black paper, white paper, and paint -- couldn't be easier)

(2016)

With multiple layers as in the card below, I challenge the copy center's machine. A staff member will help me by adjusting the color and intensity levels until the tones are strong and even.  Sometimes the staff even gets excited by my project.  I think I'm a diversion in the copy shop's day.

(2017)

I like finding quotes to put on the inside of the cards, but my painting skills fail me when I write sentences with a paint brush, such as in the blue one above.  "Merry Christmas" is one thing, but a whole stanza, not so good.

(inside quote, 2019)

This year, I found a quote that I liked.  I showed my mother how I had painted it on the inside of the card.  As usual, I had found writing so many words with a paint brush difficult, and they didn't look good.  My non-digital, non-computerized 94 year-old mother said, "Why don't you just use your computer, pick a font, and type it?"  Why not, indeed.  I still painted "Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year," but next year, I'm going to type that too, with a pretty font, in red!