My New Boyfriend

I'm deep in the trenches of holiday photo stuff. I've been tinkering around with our holiday card, and working on the annual family calendar we create for my Father-in-law's side of the family.

The card, is something new and different - at least for us, and I'm excited to see it in-hand.

The calendar has been a bit of a hassle this year. This will be the 11th year we've made a family calendar, and every year we've taken our business to Kinko's. They do a nice job, and they've got the best price for an order of 20 plus calendars. I print our own calendar pages, adding every birthday, anniversary, wedding, and expected baby; the families provide the pictures - one of mom and dad, one of the kids (and now grandkids). Grandma gets the cover shot.

This year, after some checking at my usual online developer, Snapfish, I realized they now offer a photo-a-month calendar where I could add our dates. WHEE! I can get the calendars done without leaving the house. AND? It would cost less. SCORE.

Unfortunately, their calendar only allows for one event per date. Father-in-law's family, Bohemians that they are, actually have some date-sharing going within the clan. Two dates even have THREE events. They're crazy like that. I've tried threatening, and also announcing that those two dates are off limits for weddings, and all significant others that are being considered as marriage-worthy need to have their birthdates cleared by me. I try to go easy on the babies being born, but in this day and age I could probably order them up at my convenience, right? Doctors do it, so it must be okay.

Being a long-time customer of Snapfish, I appealed to a service rep through a live chat...only to be stopped short with a choppy version of Thanks for your suggestion. We can't do that right now, but we'll pass it along to research and development. Realizing that, surely if they knew it was ME, person who orders a bazillion pictures and her holiday cards every year from them they'd be more eager to help. So, I logged in to my account and sent them a message through their 'contact' link. I explained the situation: annual calendar, 50+ people = multiple events on some dates, big order - at least 20 calendars. Still, I got the email version of Thanks for your suggestion. We can't do that right now, but we'll pass it along to research and development.

So, it was back to Kinko's. Until today...

I saw the idea for my holiday cards on another blog, and I would love to link to her site, but I don't want to spoil the surprise for...well, my sister-in law and my sister Amy, I guess, because they're the only family members reading along here as far as I know...but, anyway, don't want to ruin the surprise. However, in my quest to create my new and exciting holiday cards I was led to the online photo site Shutterfly. As I was looking at the photo gifts they offer, I noticed they too offer a photo calendar.

And I can add events.

Three. Events. Per. Date.

Since I'm a new customer, Shutterfly is giving me free shipping, which makes my toes curl in delight.

Also, shopping at Shutterfly through Babymint will send 12% of my purchase to the 529 college savings account. SWOON

So, if I'm not around it could be because I'm busy with holiday stuff. Or, it could be because I'm having an online affair with my new boyfriend Shutterfly.