Shutterfly is giving bloggers a chance to earn 50 free cards this holiday season! http://bit.ly/sfly2010

We haven’t done Christmas cards in a long time. When we first got married, we got dozens and dozens of Christmas cards from family and friends; most of them included newsletters and pictures of rapidly expanding families (and I don’t mean rapidly expanding from indulging in holiday treats!). (Little did I know there was a service like Shutterfly where you could easily get such cards). I used to love reading these cards and looking at the pictures. We posted them on our front door, so every night as we sat in the living room, we had tangible evidence of the people who loved us and wanted us to share in their joy.

One of my favorite holiday traditions is to read my parents’ Christmas cards. They keep theirs in a basket on the fireplace hearth; I love to read through the letters and pictures.

Eventually it became too much. Our family wasn’t expanding rapidly. In fact, it wasn’t expanding at all. So we quit sending cards. And because we quit sending cards, we quit receiving them, for the most part. I was a little hurt, but I guess if you send a card and the person doesn’t reply in same, well…I guess you don’t feel the need to include them on your card list. Or maybe they knew of our struggles, but I know for a fact many of them didn’t.

Anyway…

This year we will be sending out Christmas cards. We are celebrating the season in full force this year (we’re even getting a Christmas tree!!!). We’ll take a picture soon of the three of us – preferably a fun candid and not a stodgy posed photo in a studio somewhere. And we’ll get the cards in the mail!

Shutterfly offers a number of different products:  Christmas cards, calendars and photo tags are just a few options. But they also offer free photo storage, gorgeous hardcover “scrapbooked” books and fun photo gifts. If you’ve never checked them out, I highly recommend them 🙂

So…if you’re struggling with infertility this season, I understand. I feel your pain. So maybe you don’t want to order Christmas cards. Maybe you just want some fun photos of you and your spouse. They can do fun things with those, too 🙂

And even though Thanksgiving is still a few weeks away….Merry Christmas!!