While heading up to bed one November evening, I looked out the front window and saw the moon lighting up the clouds, framed by a large tree in our front year. I took the photo with my iPhone 15 Pro and it inspired this year’s card. 

In the final image, Santa and his reindeer were added to the image. Since his sleigh is empty of any presents, we determined he was out for a trial run for the year – you know, checking out all the equipment and making sure it’s ready for the big day, er, night.

Our 2024 card featured images generated by AI – but not this year. The main photo was combined with a vector image licensed from Adobe Stock. As in years past, Adobe Photoshop was used to edit and combined the images, and a watercolor filter was applied to blend the images. Unfortunately, the filter also darkened the image. Viewed on my Mac, it looked great. In print, it came out too dark to really appreciate the photo. Lesson learned.

  The Santa image inside the card was provided as clip art from Mimeo – the photo and card service that printed the cards. The image of Stella wearing Santa’s hat was created using Apple’s Image Playground, modifying an actual photo of her. So, OK, we did use a tiny bit of AI this year.