Tomorrow is our deadline for sending out Christmas mail (and hoping it arrives). So, the duck and I decided to write about one of our favorite Christmas traditions: making Christmas cards!
This is a photo of the duck looking at some of the Christmas cards we were about to send out two years ago. That was the last time we drew all of our cards by hand with an actual pen. We still like doing those from time to time, but having to start anew if you mess up is troublesome and sometimes feels like having to redo a frustrating boss battle in a video game. These days we prefer using our trusty laptop and a cheap graphics tablet (which also makes it easier to reprint a card that has gotten lost). Other than that our card-making process has pretty much stayed the same throughout the years:
Some serious Christmas carding
First the duck and I make a list of all the people we want to make Christmas cards for. Sometimes, if we don’t know their address and therefore aren’t sure if our card will make it in time for Christmas, we’ll make a general winter card instead.
Then we spend all our commutes, showers, movie sessions, conversations with other people, work ‘breaks’ and falling asleep attempts brainstorming ideas. After sketching (or just describing) a design, we’ll draw away (or make a collage or something). Sometimes we actually go a bit crazy and decide, halfway through drawing a card, that it would be super funny to add another silly detail that will only take an extra hour or ten to accomplish. I guess the duck and I really aren’t stingy on time.
Once we’ve finished all our designs, we’ll upload them to a photo printing service website. Then we remember how difficult it was last time to work with this online photo composer thing, so we struggle with it for a few hours, finally place an order, get angry the next day about a promotion we missed out on and then we wait. Usually when we pick up our cards we are shocked at the low print quality and how the images still aren’t centered despite our tweaking them for hours. Since we are professional procrastinators, the duck and I never have enough time left to order a new set of prints. Instead we will begin to write a message, realize halfway through that it won’t fit, somehow shorten it, put the card in an envelope (or send it as is), add about 10 stamps (because of weird postage price increases and add-on stamps), drop them in a mailbox that we somewhat trust and hope that our cards will, indeed, arrive.
This is our Christmas card making process. What is yours?
Knowing that some of our homemade cards were bound to get lost in the mail, the duck and I started very early on to take photos of them. Of course we’re not going to share any of this year’s card designs with you – most of them haven’t even been sent off yet. And a lot of them are about inside jokes. Two years ago, however, we went with a general theme for some of our cards: silly Christmas puns. Here are three of them. What do you think their titles are?
Hints: One card features a famous actor (and our inability to draw real people), another one shows a container with a particular haircut that holds a specific liquid and the third one… should be easy enough to guess without any hints. Feel free to share your interpretations with us (no peeking!).
Happy guessing!
The Duck in... side 