Decisions Decisions

With Christmas rapidly approaching (what? It is! There are only like 37 days.) I am faced with a dilemma new to this year. See, every year I send out a Christmas letter. Say what you will, I am a huge fan of the Christmas letter. Sure, a card is nice. I appreciate a card. But if all you do is sign your name at the bottom, then I kind of wonder...what's the point? (The only minor - and really, it's minor - exception I'm willing to make here is if you are someone with whom I am in contact every day or every other day or on some level of frequency that approximates every or every day. Then you can get away with a signature, cause I assume I already know what's going on in your life. Though really, and here's why it's a minor exception, I find stuff in the Christmas letters of people I email regularly that I had no idea was going on.) And if your annual Christmas card is the one time each year I hear from you? I want more than a signature! (Though honestly people, and you know who you are (and I know you're not reading this, but whatever) - email is a good thing. There really is no excuse for us not being in touch more often with that oh-so-delightful invention called email.)

Anyway, as I was saying, every year I send out a Christmas letter and I recognize that a lot of people just toss them in the trash and roll their eyes, but hey that's ok by me. Usually I print a little picture of the dogs down by the signatures because neither Tim nor I are crazy about being photographed and, really, we don't change that much from year to year - and if we do change it's usually something that we'd rather not have photographic proof of anyway...I'm ok with high school friends remembering me as I looked then, truly. So the whole idea of the Big Fancy Photo Christmas Card has never really crossed my mind - other than to appreciate the folks who send them and think to myself, "Wow, they really have it all together to have dressed up in a red sweater in August just to get their Christmas photos done."

But this year...this year there is Joshua. So the question has arisen...do I need to send a photo? I'm thinking that, hands down, the answer to that is yes. But this creates more questions. Is smooshing him onto the page next to the photo of the puppy enough? Do I need to include a family photo, or is he really all that people care about? Do I need more than one photo? Some sort of collage showing his growth from brand new baby to the little boy that he is today? And does this photo (these photos?) need to be in the form of a Shutterfly Christmas card (on sale now for 25% off) or is my color printer adequate? And if it does need to be from Shutterfly, do I go with the folded card or the little 4x8 thingy you stuff in a business envelope with the letter?

That last parenthetical is the crux of the issue. If I'm going to do this, I need to do it now. The prices are fine when they're not on sale, but really...25% off is too much to pass up if I'm going to do it. I'd rather not spend the whole time I'm addressing and stuffing our letter into them kicking myself for paying more than I needed to simply because I was indecisive.

So, dear Internet friends (some of whom are going to receive the card/letter/whatever in question, you lucky lucky people)...what say you?