Happy Holidays! Cards & More from Zazzle

The holiday season is full of traditions and ours is no different.  Each year we spend time with family watching National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, playing card games, listening to holiday music and eating until our bellies burst.  We also are sure to send out a photo card to wish everyone a good season and a happy new year.

Shutterfly has been our go-to for our photo cards.  Their paper is nice and thick and their printing is high-quality.  We usually find a coupon for our stack of cards but the price is still a bit more than the generic holiday cards you can find in-store.  Always the budget-minded shopper, this year I stumbled upon an amazing groupon for a new company so I thought I'd give it a try.

Zazzle is an online marketplace where you can create, buy and sell custom-printed items.  Want a custom protective case for your smartphone?  Done.  Want to print that hilarious cat-meme you created on a coffee mug?  No problem.  Want to send out holiday cards with photos of your adorable family.  Perfect timing!

Customizing our cards was super simple with their online customization tools - just upload the photos, edit the text and colors and complete the order.  We received our cards about 3 days after we ordered through Zazzle.  We received 75 double-sided printed cards on heavy cardstock for less than $40.  Not too bad.

Plus, right now Zazzle is having a holiday sale so stock up on those holiday cards and tell those you love howdy!  (P.S. Use the code personalcheer at checkout for 50% off your cards!)

Happy Holidays!

Traditions Worth Keeping: Family Yearbooks

For some reason I really like thinking of fun little traditions our family can take part in, (like Christmas in July!), but the executing of these said traditions is a whole 'nother story.  On Fridays I suggested we take part in Family Game Night - problem is...I kind of, sort of, don't really like playing games.  It's not the games, it's me.  I'm just so tired of winning - I'd rather cuddle up on the couch, scarf popcorn and watch movies.  The other two men in my family love games, so I'm sure a compromise is in order.  Then I created a date night jar and a bucket list, both of which have only been used once. While many traditions in this household have been abandoned along the way there's one tradition in our household that we've kept around.

I hinted at these yearbooks when I was organizing the tv cabinet.  Each year I make a Padgett Family Yearbook which highlights the past year's travel and activities in photos.  We have 8 books and counting (fingers crossed.)  The first one starts during our dating adventures, which began in 2005, then fast-forwards through 2006 because this girl went a little crazy and suffered from a bout of commitment-phobia.  But don't fret, things resumed in 2007 and have been going strong ever since with couple extra additions that have made their way into our stack - like our wedding album and one dedicated to our little man.