Charting the Uncharted Waters of Our Year

Designer’s Note: 

Every year, I start thinking about our Christmas card sometime in September. It usually takes until mid-November to really land on a concept. This year, it was a few days before — and I just had to make it work. We quickly pulled together a half-built idea, a loose shot list, and a late-night Amazon scroll for wardrobe. We had about a 30-minute window to shoot on our back deck and hoped the angles — let alone the shots needed to sell the story — would actually come together.

By the grace of God, we pulled it off. Kinda.

The original idea for this card was about “burning the ships” and going all in. It involved a lot of destruction, fire, a kraken, and a healthy amount of mischief. But I realized pretty quickly that the concept wasn’t going to work. A 5×7 is hardly enough space to tell the full story I see in my head — and every year, I’m reminded of that.

This year was no exception.

In fact, that realization made this one of the harder cards to design. Once the photos were taken, there wasn’t time for a reshoot. The work became less about executing the plan and more about adapting to what we had — which felt fitting for the year itself: forward motion, regardless of shifting winds or rising swells.

Grateful for a wife and two daughters who blindly entertain my ideas each year — and somehow always go all in with me.

May the wind be always at your back,