So in some ways it seems like the world did come to an end today.

For the first time in nearly 10 years, I am not sending out a Christmas card!

Trivial, I know.

But I’m pretty super bummed out about it.

Let me say that it’s not for lack of trying! It’s just that the universe has been working against me ever since I started thinking about our annual holiday card this year…

The past few years, we’ve snapped a family picture the night we dress up for my step-grandma’s annual Christmas torture, I mean party.

It’s always early in the month which leaves plenty of time for selecting and ordering the perfect card. This system has worked well until this year when Andy had to spend the afternoon in the lab and couldn’t make it to grandma’s party.

Womp. Womp. Womp.

Because we still had nearly 3 weeks till Christmas, I didn’t think too much of it and guessed that we’d be able to get a good pic in plenty of time for me to create my own cards using one of my all time favorite sites, Picmonkey.

But then Andy was swamped with studying for finals and then we all got sick and then it was today! Only 4 days before Christmas and only 2 mail delivery days till it seemed like a waste to even send them.

In a valiant race against the clock, we woke up this morning, ate breakfast, showered and got dressed for our photo op! I whipped out the handy dandy tripod and positioned us all in front of the tree. After about 10 self-timed shots with a wriggly toddler, we had a couple of photos that were good enough to make a card out of.

I figured I’d go with the somewhat standard 4×8 card size and I quickly threw together a little something that I was going to email to a local pharmacy for pickup later today!

It’s no work of fine art, but it was good enough and I was going to be able to have them in the mailbox tonight!

Until…

I learned that the photo counters at the pharmacy don’t print custom sizes and my card wasn’t going to shrink down nicely to fit a 4×6 photo.

Waaaaaaaa!

Trying not to be deterred, I checked out Kinko’s online and after struggling through their very user unfriendly site for a while, I realized that I couldn’t get what I wanted there either.

At this point I’d spent more time than I was willing to invest and Grace and Andy were patiently waiting for me to finish up so we could head out to run errands after being cooped up in our house for over a week.

The card would have to wait.

Fast forward to just before dinner tonight. I went online again and mocked up a regular old 4×6 photo of us with a little greeting added for good measure.

I didn’t know exactly how I was going to mail these out since I don’t have envelopes that are the right size. Maybe I’d find some cheap cards at the pharmacy and just stick this pic inside? Or something.

But alas, when I went to order this print online for pickup at the local pharmacy, the preview was coming up blurry! I’m not sure what that was all about, but I was not about to order 75 blurry pictures!

UGGGHHH!

So I went back onto the Kinko’s site thinking there must be something I could do. I mean IT’S KINKO’S FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!

I eventually noticed that they have Sony photo machines in store that are used to create and print things like my little DIY Christmas cards.

Bingo!

I threw my options onto a flash drive and raced over to Kinko’s thinking I’d be back in time to heat up some soup for dinner and get crackin’ on addressing my envelopes.

But after wrestling with BOTH Sony machines at Kinko’s, I left angry and empty handed.

The stupid machines wouldn’t read my flash drive.

*Sidenote: The flashdrive was acting a little finicky when I added the photos to it in the first place and I should have grabbed a different one but that meant climbing a flight of stairs which at this point in my pregnancy is a slow form of torture so I decided to be lazy and jimmy the flash I had into my laptop until it registered. Bad idea.

I literally threw the flash in the trash on my way out the door, huffed and puffed through gale force winds all the way to my cold car and peeled out of the parking lot so I could get home and declare to Andy that I was DONE!

And I am done.

It’s just not meant to be this year. It’s too last minute and I don’t want to spend a fortune and I really don’t want to send them out tomorrow only to have them arrive after Christmas when everyone is dumping all their cards in the trash anyway.

I’m disproportionately upset about the whole thing and I’ve been trying to figure out why…

Traditions are really meaningful to me, so I know that part of it is that I’m breaking an almost decade-long tradition. I also know that a bunch of our family members save our cards on their fridge for the year and I’m sad that they won’t have our holiday picture to do that this year.

It’s probably a bit of pride too. I mean I have more time on my hands this year than I’ve ever had in years past, but I still couldn’t seem to get it together.

Whatever the root of my intense emotion is, I’m probably better off having my boat rocked a little bit by this so I can learn to just let go and move on.

It’s not a big deal and I shouldn’t make it one.

So, from my family to yours….MERRY CHRISTMAS!