I’m a sucker for a good Christmas card.  It’s such a rare treat, getting something in the mail from another human being your actually care about, and if there’s some level of personalization- swoon!  It makes me so happy.

That’s partly why over the past 2 years I’ve designed Christmas cards with illustrations of our family on them.  I’m not big into pictures (seriously, I’m so awkward), and besides it’d be next to impossible to get the chickens, the dog, the cat, and my husband and I all into a picture for one of those nice holiday cards that photogenic families send out.

Last year, in 2015, we lost Little Girl and our dog Shiner.  Shiner passed the day after Thanksgiving, so I quickly developed a sketch that included both he and Little Girl, but had a bit of symbolism to it to show that they were apart from us now.We also spent a ton of time painting and repairing our house in Pontiac as well, which I wanted to commemorate. I had a professional turn it into a vector, and quickly sent it to the printers. You can see the sketches that lead to the final product (below) on my Laura Mikulski Google+ profile

I had a very specific idea for our 2016 holiday card this year.  We took it a little bit easier this year, and I wanted to card to have a cozy feel to it.  I decided the scene should show Ben and I in our Ferndale house, lounging on the sofa with Hurley and The B, with our chickens outside (Little Girl was, hopefully, the last house bird). I got a basic design together, asked an artist for help tracing and creating shadows, and with a little tweaking got this:

Of course then the printer (Vistaprint), botched the job AND sent a batch of cards to some unknown address.  Cards went out super late as a result, but I hope people still enjoyed them.

If you include your chickens on your holiday cards, I’d love to know! Show me a pic in the comments.