Olive Us: Love Letter to the Year

It’s our holiday Olive Us episode! And it’s a charmer. It’s called Love Letter to the Year and we hope it will have you thinking about your own year, and feeling nostalgic about exchanging holiday cards. Betty’s narration is sweet as can be. And it even features my sister Jordan of Oh Happy Day, and her son Roman! I hope you enjoy the video.

Love Letter to the Year

I LOVE getting holiday cards in the mail. It’s definitely one of my favorite parts about December. I know it’s a tradition that can seem old school since so many of us connect throughout the year on places like Instagram and Facebook, but there’s just something about getting a paper card in the mail!

What’s your take on holiday cards? Do you send them? If yes, do you send them every year? And are you a early sender or a late one? Have you ever delayed, and sent out New Years cards instead? I always love hearing how different families handle common things like this.

P.S. — We worked with Minted on this episode. More on our collaboration tomorrow! Photos featured on the holiday cards were taken by Justin Hackworth and Sarah of Modern Kids. Also, curious about Olive Us? You can find all my Olive Us posts here.

22 thoughts on “Olive Us: Love Letter to the Year”

  1. We do it different every year! I like to try and get them mailed before Christmas, but last year we did a New Years card since we were traveling over the holidays.

  2. I send them out almost every year, but this year is a little crazy. We’re moving out of our current house at the beginning of December but can’t move into our new-to-us house until the end of the month, so our address is a bit in limbo! I’m thinking about sending out New Year’s (or maybe even Valentines Day!) cards with our new address.

  3. CUTENESS patootness!

    Letter-writing is such a joy-filled thing! There is nothing like a child getting REAL mail sent to them.

    We had penpals in gradeschool and I continued writing letters to friends and family through my 20’s. When my then-boyfriend and now-husband was in West Africa completing his Peace Corps experience, I wrote almost 200 letters to him. There is a great local company here, eggpress, whose founder Tess Darrow started this Write On campaign. http://eggpress.com/write_on

  4. Christmas cards are one of my FAVORITE annual traditions – ever since our kids were babies we’ve been sending a card with their photo on it at Christmas. I love to keep one and see how they’ve grown from year to year, and I love the challenge of finding a card that is both unique AND also not too expensive (wow, you could really drop some $$ on them!) I love the cards at Minted and Pear Tree Greetings….metallic foils are in this year…hmmm…need to get them going – thanks for the reminder! :-)

    1. You may be glad to hear I’m hosting a Minted giveaway tomorrow. You’ll find it first thing in the morning! And I agree about the metallic foils. That’s what we chose as well.

  5. We don’t do them every year, though we do try. We’ve been rather creative some years- including one year when we sent Easter cards!

  6. This episode was a new favorite…I loved how Betty narrated it – what a sweet voice she has :). And the special appearance by your sister was very cool too. Overall, a fantastic piece! As for holiday cards – I always send mine as New Year’s cards….takes the pressure of sending them out by December 15th :).

    1. Thank you, Annie. I like Betty’s voice, too. : )

      And there’s something lovely about New Year’s cards. As an added bonus, they’re a good fit for those of us who don’t have a religious affiliation.

  7. I spy some Minted cards! We’ve used them every year for the past 5 years. Family and friends have always comment on how nice they are. I love the books, but scaled back to a flat card this year to save myself some time and cash. I absolutely love the pre addressed envelopes with a calligraphic font. (That was the point of the process that always held me up in the past.) When the cards arrive we do the same as you, each family member helps out putting on stamps, sealing envelopes. What was once a chore for me had become a tradition for our family. I save an extra card each year for each kid

  8. Oh, I loved this! Such a precious history you’re making.
    Sometimes I realize that the only real family history I’m keeping
    is via Family Christmas reports. Wonderful to pause each year and
    remember and record. So PROUD of you all!!!

  9. I am usually really great about getting Christmas cards out on time, but for the past two years I have been working full-time, finishing a masters degree and was pregnant with/raising my sweet baby girl so I have been terribly late! I used minted both years to send out a New Years card, and last year… their big xo card at Valentines day that jokes about being too late for the ho ho ho so we are sending a big xo! This year, I have already ordered my Christmas cards and thanks to the new envelope addressing all I have to do is stuff and seal! Woot! I love minted. http://www.minted.com/search?s=big+xo&x=0&y=0

  10. OK, so clearly I was an eager beaver and had I but scrolled down I would have seen the video post was right here! *L*

    Well, every thing I said above in the Minted post…DITTO! This was just adorable. The Christmas season is absolutely my favorite time of year and this just made me smile. Please tell Miss Betty she did an AMAZING job on this!! Bravo! She’s such a wonderful little narrator. You guys must be so proud. (and tell Oscar that Wolfie says “heyyy!”)
    xo
    alix

  11. This is really sweet. Like Julia said, above, you are making such an amazing history of your life, if nothing else (of course it’s more!). I love the tradition of Christmas cards. Sometimes I’m so tardy that I do Valentines instead. They’re both celebrations of love, right?

  12. LOVE the new video! We did about every other year before kids. We got in the bad habit of topping the year before and we just couldn’t keep up with doing it every year!

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