Card Notes 2010:

1. This year’s card started off with the idea that both Danny and Nicole lived at Stonegate (at least part time) this year, so we were all under the same roof.
2. So we decided to let Nicole and Danny design the card. One idea was to have them recreate the last card they had done together back in 1991. They liked that idea.
3. Nicole “upgraded” her 2010 card using a photo of Stonegate in the snow. In 1991 she drew our townhouse at Washington Square.
4. Danny “upgraded” his 2010 by making sure his Santa had arms this time. (He forgot to draw arms in 1991 when he was four.)
5. If you look closely, you’ll see there are four presents in the sleigh.
6. Also if you look closely you’ll count four legs on Danny’s reindeer. He can explain why three legs are on one side.
7. Stout and Clyde are at the window where they spend a lot of time waiting for one of us to return (or see people walking down the street.)
8. In 1991, we borrowed the sugarplum line from ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas so we borrowed from it again, in part because of the word “house-top” and the fact we all lived under the same roof in 2010.
9. The drawing of baby Jesus (from Claire’s 1999 manger scene drawing) was added last minute when Kelly said the inside right side of the card needed something graphical. Good catch. Reason for the season.
10. There is a Merry Christmas greeting in Armenian and Lithuanian, in honor of Nicole’s Peace Corps return and Gabriele spending her 10th grade year with us. There are also flags on the back.
11. The card remembers Uncle Horace who died in October and Frances who followed him in early December. Uncle Horace mailed us a dollar several times through the years to buy 20 of our 5 cent cards. According to cousin Margaret, he loved our homemade cards.
12. The copyright years reflect ideas and art borrowed from our 1991 and 1999 Christmas cards.
13. The front and inside left drawings were hand colored by Kelly, Claire, Jeb, Gabriele and Danny, a “retro” production process.
14. The quarter page card format and paper is also “retro” based on our early cards which were copied at Kinko’s and then hand colored and folded at home.
15. Gabriele (who was the only teen awake early Saturday morning) decided the wreath from the door would be used on the address labels.
16. The word “work” is used deliberately in the 2010 Cast listing. It is good that all of us are working one way or the other in this economy.
17. The following tools were used in card production:

• MacBook
• Scanner
• Photoshop
• Apple Pages
• HP Printer
• Color pencils
• Dakota Handwriting Font
• Skia Font
• Lucida Sans Font
• Adobe Acrobat (for digital version)
• issuu.com for digital “flip card”

MERRY CHRISTMAS!