At The Market: Holiday Cards That Won't Make You Cringe

They can be more than one thing.

Nov 05, 2023

I find that people fall into one of two camps when they hear the words "holiday cards." There's the camp that says "aw" and the camp that says "yuck". I fall in the former with a sincere understanding of the latter. There are some cheesy holiday cards out there. And haven't we seen enough pictures on Instagram? But the thing is, I just like holiday cards! When I was growing up we kept a big, porcelain bowl of all the cards we received in our living room. I loved going in there and pulling the big bowl down onto the rug to sit and read through each one. It was fun, and in some cases funny, to see the pictures, messages and designs people chose. Holiday cards are a window into people. And a window into families. What could be more interesting? I remember a card someone sent out the year they got divorced. After a decade of sending photo cards with a happy looking husband, wife and kids, this woman sent out a card with a photo of herself. She could have just not sent one out that year. I thought it was a brave and beautiful thing to do.

My favorite card I received last year was from my friend whose grandfather had recently passed away. As she was cleaning out his desk, she found a small stack of nostalgic holiday cards in one of his drawers. The design was old school: a cheery snowman. She decided to take the small pile of cheerful snowmen and send them out to close friends and family with a handwritten note. Simple, classic in the best way. Knowing that they were from her grandfather's desk, it felt really special to receive one. It made me pause and think about how her grandfather probably chose the cards because they made him feel something good, and how his granddaughter made that goodness go a little bit further.

So you see? Holiday cards can be more than one thing. They can go out to one person or one-hundred. Now that I've established this, I will admit that I am one of those people who sends out a photo card of their family every year. There are so many hard things that come with raising a family and this is one of the fun things for me. So I do it! I have a folder of all the cards we've sent out that I'll keep adding to each year. Every now and then I pull out the folder, lay each card out side by side, and take in how far we've come.

Sifting through the hundreds of designs come November is something I love to do (weird hobby, I know). In no particular order, here are my favorite holiday card ideas this year. There may even be one in there to convert a "yuck" camper or two.

If Photos Aren’t Your Thing

I love the idea of these notecards with the letter of your family’s last name, or your first name initial. This creates a personal touch without the photo. For something lighter, I also love this flat notecard set, which you can personalize by doing a custom order. It would be so cute to do an initial inside the heart!

Customize, Customize, Customize

The best way to take the cheese out of a card is to use the customization options. In this case you can customize the text, color, font, orientation and more. This leaves a lot of room to make your card your own.

For the Minimalist

If the idea of customizing is too much, here’s a quick, beautiful, pre-designed option. All it needs is one small photo.

For the Design Lover

Some pattern and color without a hint of cringe.

Minted, Swiss. Note: I changed the font here to “Camila Regular”.

For the Holiday Holiday People

I wouldn’t forget you! There are lots of beautiful ways to say holiday. From top left: Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, Joyous Kwanzaa, Happy Holidays.