Burns Family Christmas Card 2021

Christmas Greetings!

Each year, we send out a Christmas card to family and friends. And each year we try to make our Christmas card just a little different from everyone else’s, to bring a smile and some Christmas joy to whoever we can.

Usually, those Christmas cards involve some sort of photo of us, often inspired by what has happened that year. See some of our past cards here.

However, this year we were faced with a little bit of a challenge. Because Jaylin was a few states away in Kansas during the fall, we did not have a good way to get a photo of us together. We talked about a few options (which I won’t reveal here just in case we want to use them for later).

But then, Laura said, “What if we were all gingerbread people? We could each be decorated in our own way!” With that, I was off and running. That is why she is the main creative person in our family!

After a few revisions, here is what we came up with:

I think it should be pretty obvious as to which of us is which. Laura has pink boots and a stick horse. Jaylin has a football and a Sterling College shirt. And if the hairdo didn’t give it away as me, I have a pencil and a Mobius the Goat shirt. Each our own personalities, but all together on the same family cookie sheet.

Laura also came up with the words, which are “Making Christmas delicious in our own way!” And, “We hope this Christmas is YOUR sweetest yet!” How fitting!

If you are wondering, I first drew the basic gingerbread cookie shape. And then I added all of the “icing” decorations for each one of us. I had a separate file for each cookie, and then I put us all together in the final version, including words, as you see above.

And the Back…

We have also traditionally had a reindeer on the back of our cards, usually participating in the same thing that we have been doing on the front of the card. Just a fun way to tie everything together from year to year.

At first for this year’s card, I thought about having a gingerbread reindeer to somewhat match the three of us on the front of the card. But then I had an idea. What if the reindeer had baked our gingerbread cookies? And that led to this:

If you look closely, you can even see that the reindeer is wearing a Santa Claus apron. And yes, I did just manipulate the cookie artwork into the reindeer drawing instead of having to draw it all over again. Why make extra work for myself?

So there you have our Christmas card for 2021. We all hope you had a Merry Christmas, and that you have a Happy New Year ahead of you!

Now, whatever will we do for next year’s card??

And if you would like to be added to our Christmas card mailing list for the next year, just fill out this handy form! Thanks!