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How To Up Your Holigay Card Game

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Many of you might be planning to make and give holiday cards to friends and family. Here are some surefire ways to make your holigay card awesome!

Step 1: Order your dog a sweater

Bonus if your dog actually needs to wear one like mine (he shivers and cries when it’s 60 degrees out).

I ordered this one from Chilly Dog.

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My other top choices:

Preppy “Boyfriend” Sweater
PJs (If someone gets this I need a photo please and thank you)
HATS (this one mostly because of the model tbh)

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Optional Step 1.5: Extra points if you have a baby and get them a sweater to match the dog. Or if you buy this outfit. If you do SEND PHOTOS IMMEDIATELY.

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If you have a lot of babies please dress them all as Santa because it is my dream in life to see a squad of baby Santas.

Step 2: Decide on your style.

Are you going to be super classic and go to Sears? Honestly, I really wanted to do a super creepy perfect family photo there but bringing my giant dog would present a problem and also my grandma probably wouldn’t want that on the fridge. Are you going to be candid or posed? Outdoors or indoors? We shot outside, posed and candid.

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Step 3: Ask your photography-inclined friend to take the photo.

(or book your appointment at JC Penny or Sears)

Please don’t use that cute selfie from your road trip, a photo from Pride where you think you look hard, or that funny photo you took one time. Grandma won’t put that on her fridge. I asked my friend who happens to be a great photographer. Thanks Leah!

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Step 4: Find holiday outfits in your closet.

I happen to own a lot of Christmas sweaters but my girlfriend’s family is Jewish so we went for a more suburban-lesbian-seasonal vibe. And we obviously coordinated to our dog’s sweater.

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Or you can order these.

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Step 5: Pick your printer.

Here you have a sea of options. I personally am not a fan of the pre-made cards from Costco or Walgreens, but you can order prints there and make DIY cards. Or go with an online printing company. I order from artifactuprising.com because I already place a lot of orders with them for books and prints, and I found that for what I wanted they had the best price. Also their interface is so much better than anyone else.

Here are some other options. I haven’t actually ordered from here so I can’t speak to their quality but I’ve played around with their templates and they’re fun.

+ minkcards.com
+ minted.com
+ sweetletterpress.com
+ shutterfly.com

Here’s a digital version of our final card — don’t show my Grandma it’s a surprise.

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Related:

Molly Adams is an LA-based photographer. You can find documenting life from Afghanistan to Standing Rock to the LA queer nightlife. You can also find her on Instagram.

Molly has written 65 articles for us.

21 Comments

  2. my friend told me about artifactuprising and i finally checked it out since you mentioned it here and it’s so freaking cool! i think i’m getting my girlfriend one of those instagram photobooks

    thanks for the recommendation!

  5. Okay: I don’t have a dog, a baby, or a significant human. Are photo cards a thing we singlefolk are supposed to do?

    I looked through several of the sites you linked above and ALL their examples are couples/families/babies, so I’m going to say no.

    I did move this year and want to send “happy hols, here’s my new address, life is good” cards, but I don’t need to compete with friends’ adorable children OR look like I’m overcompensating for my lonesomeness. Is a store-bought card + printed letter still okay, or is that too ’90s?

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