Christmas Dreamings

For the last four years, we’ve sent out unique and fun Christmas cards created on Shutterfly – see the collection at http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/holiday-cards.  I’m mildly obsessed with that site and have used it countless times for cards and photo books.  As we prepare this year’s card – we thought we’d look back on the cards of Christmas past…

2006

We started dating in July 2006 – so it was a bit of a gamble to include a “couple” picture on this card, but when ya know, ya know.  Ya know? (This is Michelle’s card if you haven’t figured that out.  I know this is a shocker, but Jason didn’t send out cards in his bachelor years.)  This is when we lived in Maine – so the images alternate with quintessential Maine scenes and personal photos.  This was also back when I was a reporter at WMTW in Portland – so the obligatory “live reporting” shot made it in (complete with a suit and flip flops – that’s reality, folks!).  The photo of the two of us is at Lake Champlain in Burlington, Vermont – and there’s another of me hiking with my parents when they were visiting.

2007

Christmas in 2007 occurred just one month before our wedding – and this is one of our engagement photos (Jason popped the question in June 2007).  We were tempted to not even send out cards that year.  After all, those near & dear to us just received some very snazzy wedding invites and we were planning a wedding, moving across country, both changing jobs, looking for a place to live – yeah, that was CRAZY.  But we were so, so happy – and this card simply captures that moment in time.

2008

By the time Christmas 2008 rolled around, our wedding was 11 months in the past – so many exciting things happened that year too (getting Bowdoin the bulldog, new jobs, new condo, honeymoon in Cabo San Lucas…).  However, we knew this was our last chance to use one of our AMAZING wedding photos (thanks to our incredible photographer, Jennifer Radack with O’Grace Photography) – so we went ahead and had one last bride & groom hurrah!

2009

Bring on the funk!  We had so much fun putting this card together last year.  I’m learning how to take “real” photos – so I got all the settings set, picked the perfect spot (just down the street from the Dream), and convinced my dad to snap this shot.  Both Bulldogs behaved, for the most part – Paris was a little camera shy back then (we’d only had her for one month).  We sent the image to Jason’s cousin – who is an amazing photographer with some super-slick editing skills (check out his site – GeoffGreene.com).  He switched it to black & white, popped out the red and edited out the cars at the intersection in the background.  We love the final result!  2009 was a big year for us – it’s the year we bought the Dream, Jason had a birthday ending in “0”, we took our first trip to France together (which has had a huge impact on the Dream), and expanded our family to four!

The 2010 card is still being put together, but I can guarantee these images (or ones similar) will make an appearance:

After all, it’s probably the Bulldog’s last hurrah as next year it will be all about a cute little mini-human-Dreamer. 🙂

We have a couple other vacation photos we’d like to include as well… so here’s our top picks for phototcard designs this year (from http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery):

Sorry the images are small.  You can see the whole collection at http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-cards.  Bloggers can get 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly: http://bit.ly/sfly2010 Whoop!

About Michelle Fortin

Michelle Fortin is a follower of Jesus, a wife and a mom. She's also an award winning broadcast journalist and public relations professional. Michelle spent nearly a decade working in television newsrooms across the country, both behind and in front of the camera. Training future broadcast journalists in her faculty associate roles at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University and at Arizona Christian University was a cherished focus of her post-TV career. Today, she maintains a roster of public relations clients focused on empowering fellow “momprenuers.” She also serves as a speaker for various women's and mom's events. Michelle received her bachelor’s degree from Biola University and Master of Mass Communication (MMC) from Arizona State University. She and her husband, two young kids and English bulldog call Scottsdale, Arizona, home.

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