Christmas Cards

2013 will go down in my autobiography as the Year of Design. I got a job in April. I grew the lady balls to open CS6 & learn some stuff. And learn, I did. I began designing for real.

In my learning, I’ve just begun to work print jobs. I am working on a huge informational poster for a business right now. And in my free time, I’ve been designing this little gem: The Willingham 2013 Christmas card.

If it found it’s way into your mailbox, I hope you found it to be as witty & wonderful as I intended. The front features month-by-month snapshots of what happened in Willinghamland this year, everything from jobs to birthdays to appendectomies. (No worries, I didn’t go into detail…and I swear I’ll stop talking about it in 2014)

On the back, you’ll find pics of us (in case you forgot what we looked like, were interested in how huge we’d become since marriage, etc.) Of course, Mack’s headshot is included. I am his Momager – feel free contact me for his modeling work.

As much as I loved designing them, I love sending/receiving them more. It is a small thing (total, I spent $50 for printing & postage for about 100 cards) but it says that, hey, this Christmas me & mine are thinking of you & yours. It’s snail mail – takes forever to write out addresses, lick, stamp, repeat. But the act of sending cards helped me slow down for a moment & really think of the people I was sending them to. I got lost in thoughts of what families were doing what/going where for Christmas, how big kids had grown, which friends were newly married or pregnant this season & how exciting that must be, who just graduated & was off to somewhere new to begin jobs & lives.

It’s easy to thoughtlessly blow through other holiday chores. But sending cards is exempt from the holiday rush we seem to default to…Of all the holiday season, from organizing parties to baking and gift wrapping, I think lovingly designing and sending our Christmas card has been my favorite task.

In other news:

• Cory & I will be in Oklahoma for the holidays, beginning this Thursday!
• Jay Z concert on Saturday…In my daydreams, Queen Bey appears to duet “03 Bonnie & Clyde” & I die.
• Ya know the Angel Tree? Ya know, how you can “adopt” an underprivileged child for the holidays & buy their Christmas presents. Unbeknownst to me (until Cory told me), you can also adopt & buy for elderly persons in nursing homes, often without family to buy them basic needs like sweatpants/sweatshirts, socks, toiletries, etc. If you see such a tree, think of adopting from it or even buying some of these basics & dropping them off at a nursing home.
• Cory & I take sick pleasure in buying things for our nieces that they probably do not need. This year, Cory’s present ideas for Hialeah (who is 5) included a guinea pig, a puppy &/or a paintball gun. We settled for a remote control snake (!) and a 51 piece set of toy animals. Next year, I think it’s time to graduate to fireworks &  a ferret. Kidding. Kinda.
• It’s book club tonight….Bonfire & wine. I can’t wait.

xo

J.