Our 2010 New Year's Card
Japanese culture has people sending New Year's cards en masse just before the end of the year, with Japan Post holding them until the morning of January First, at which point they then deliver them in accumulated bundles to households across Japan.
The card above is what we sent this year, with pictures from:
- Anthony Starts First Grade
- Anthony's Shichi-Go-San Hakama Portrait
- Visit to Tokyo Disneyland: the Second Day
- Anthony's First Grade-School Sports Festival
- Growing Up Quickly: Off To First Grade On His Own
- Anthony's First Ski Experience
- Anthony's First Solo Outing
- Quicky Passport-Photo Photo Session
and our trip to Ohio in the summer.
Fumie came up with the design, and I implemented it in Photoshop. It's an easy design... the hard part is picking the photos to include from the 18,775 that I have from 2009. (It was certainly a lot less work than this Photoshop work I did for a friend four years ago, and remain proud of even though I think I could do much better today.)
Because it falls so close to Christmas, we use the same design for our Christmas Card, just replacing the Japanese with English...
Our Christmas 2009 Card
We didn't send New Year's cards a year ago because you don't send or receive them in a year you've suffered a death in the family (Fumie's maternal grandmother passed away in April of last year), so last year we had only a Christmas Card:
Our Christmas 2008 Card
From the archives: our New Year's cards for: 2008, 2007, and 2006.
Wow!
That’s a great postcard. I’m going to make something like that next year. Very well done!
Earnest
I was just wondering, did you print them yourself? Or at a photo place?
I am currently living in Japan and wish to send some card this year as well as Christmas ones back home with a idea.
I have them printed here. They tell you the exact size in pixels your image should be, so that tells me they have a clue. I’ve used them for three years, I think, and I’ve always been happy with the results. —Jeffrey