This year’s card features a photograph that Becky took while on her summer trip to Madagascar. She went there to do field research on native plants and animals as part of a study for Operation Walacea. She travelled to the southern tip of the Island nation to a very remote area without running water, electricity, cell phones, or any modern conveniences. Among the reptiles, birds, insects and plants they were studying were Lemurs. She was just a few feet from this one when she took the picture.

For those of you that are not sure, no, it really didn’t have a Santa hat or tree ornament in his hand. Those were added with the help of Photoshop by dear old Dad. In the original photo the Lemur is reaching out to grab some leaves to eat–but its hand was just opening up. It made the perfect place to stick in an ornament.

The cards were created using iPhoto on a Mac in much the same way as in previous years. There aren’t the technical challenges to produce the cards that were there in the early years. Now the creativity has to come from the images and messages themselves.