Christmas Card Model Dog

Here's the Christmas card that we ended up sending out.  There's a good chance you have it up on your mantle right now.  If you don't, I'd suggest printing the picture and putting it on the mantle.  I've been told that it brings good luck.  And that it'll make your whole house smell like bacon.  (Okay, so that first part was a lie.)  Oh, and, by the way, if we don't send you birthday or anniversary cards or anything like that, just remember that we covered it with the "happy everything" card back in December.

Anyway, I was pretty happy with the card, except that Mitch looked like some sort of ghost dog with rabies.  The funny thing about that was that during our little Christmas card photo shoot (thanks, Photographer Cassie!), Mitch was basically acting like a model dog.

Well, maybe not at first. . .

But then it was like he was an old Christmas card photo takin' pro.*

 Seriously, look at him.

Are you kidding me with this one? 

I really do think he's in a contest with himself to be the cutest dog on the planet.

*Which, clearly, Matt and I are not.**

**Also, it's true that Matt and I, in our very non-model way, dressed for completely different types of weather and/or parts of the earth.  It was like 65 degrees and raining, and I'd woken up that morning with poison ivy on my face.  Plus, I love winter garb.

Martha Stewart's Christmas Lights

I love Christmas and I love Martha Stewart and her team of creative geniuses and I LOVE Christmas lights.

So you can imagine my delight when I saw these ideas in her latest Martha Stewart Living magazine.

Is it too early to pull out the Christmas decorations and begin building Christmas light stars and snowflakes?

What a Card!

I think that maybe I only send out Christmas cards so that I get Christmas cards in return.  I measure my self-worth by the number of cards that we receive and display.  Sometimes I'll even print out Christmas cards from celebrities and pretend that we received them in the mail.  Like this one:

Ha.  Those are our cousins. 

Anyway, I've long been a fan of the photo Christmas card, even way back before they were super cool.  Tanya and I once knocked on the door of her cute neighbor, snapped a picture, and turned the picture into a Christmas card that we sent to all of our friends.  (Poor guy.) 

As I get older, I love the photo Christmas card for an entirely different reason: laziness.  Yes, friends, I am lazy.  I love that the photo card already has a message on it (perhaps even one I wrote myself?) and there's not enough room for me to feel obligated to write long messages that end up hurting my hand.

And lately the photo cards have gotten super cute!  Check out these spunky designs from Shutterfly.

I'd like one of each, please. 

And, shoot, you can even give awesome personalized gifts from Shutterfly.  Like picture mugs that just never go out of style.  Or a photo book, which is an impressive and thoughtful gift, especially for someone older who doesn't know about photo books!  Or other cool photo collage things.  But what I really want is a giant wall decal of a picture I've taken.  (Are you listening, Matt?  I want a giant cupcake to hang on our wall.)

Now I just have to convince Matt and Mitch to be cooperative for a Christmas card photo shoot so that we can order and get these awesome cards in the mail.  The Obamas will be VERY upset if they don't get our card this year.

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