the holiday card thing

When I had my first child 23 years ago and that first special holiday season arrived, I thought I had a great 'old school' idea - to send a photo Christmas card!  At that time, I don't even think I received any photo cards personally, but growing up, I remembered my family getting photo cards from far away relatives in Seattle, so I thought it would be creative and "original" to send a photo card and of course everyone would want to see a picture of my cute little baby with a santa hat on!  Little did I know that this is just like when you buy a car and suddenly you see so many similar cars on the road, or when you become pregnant and you find yourself smiling at all the pregnant women that seem to come out of the woodwork.  Yes, just like that I started receiving photo cards from everyone I knew as they all began having families.  So it began.  I printed the 'old school traditional' version with a photo and some 'white space area' to write in and I hand wrote a little message on every card to my friends and relatives.  The list grew year by year, as I added people I worked with in all the places I traveled for shoots, new friends I met thru the kids and school and sports and etc... and my plan was that once a person was on 'the card list' they would never leave the card list!  You can imagine how the list began to grow year after year, but still I would find time (meaning make time in the wee hours of the night) to write each one out by hand.  And as the cards I received grew more and more creative with printed messages and collages of photos of trips taken and multiple shots on the front and inside, along with the printed page outlining the events of the year, sometimes humorously and sometimes not so much, I dug my heels in further and refused to succumb to the temptation set before me... would I finally cave and do the fancy printing thing too?  Let's fact it, here I am in a creative business and yet my cards remained as basic as they get - a simple photo (sometimes not even a particularly good one) and a hand-written message.  I do admit that I had to finally print the address labels themselves because I am realistic when it comes to the fact that I do need a few hours of sleep per night at a minimum to function, so I had to let that go... but no sireee-bob I will NOT print the cards with our names typed out and some fancy design of holly and ribbon, along with a canned message, or even an original message that I create because the same sentiment cannot possibly be written to every person on the long and winding holiday card list!!  In the most intense of holiday-stress-out-years, and there have been some doozies with young kids and shopping and wrapping and cooking, where I was so close to the edge I thought I would hit the looney bin for sure (that year the cards didn't actually get mailed until after christmas) but through it all and even this very year, I sat with that crazy stack of cards in front of me and little by little night after night, I thought about each person/family and wrote a little note JUST TO THEM to send them special wishes for the holidays.  And even if they don't give it another thought and just toss it after reading, at least I know it was meant especially for them.  Apologies to the perfect-holiday-card-people who might be reading this - no guilt trip intended - print away and I will still enjoy seeing the perfectly shot and designed holiday card and I will be happy you took the time to keep me on your list because it is fun to see how your family has grown and hear about the exciting things you have done during the year, and please know that I DO NOTICE that you may have actually taken the time to hand-write the address on the envelope!