It probably goes without saying that if you want a professional-looking family Christmas card, then you need to have a beautiful photo or two of your family. However, Christmas cards are so much more than just photos. If you’re creating your family Christmas card, here are some other ideas that will help you create a professional-looking, yet personalized holiday card.

1. Make It Personal

The reason why you decided to go with family Christmas cards is because of the personal aspect. After all, if you had wanted to do something more generic you could have just bought a card at the store. Clearly, your photo makes it personal. However, if you don’t need to just stop there when it comes to adding personal touches to your holiday cards.

For example, you may have a pet charity that you donate to every year during Christmas time. Perhaps you could include information about that charity to your friends and family when you make your card. Whatever it is that you choose, you’re giving your card recipients a closer look at who you and yours are.

2. Use the Right Software

Not everyone is a graphic designer, which is why so many people avoid creating personalized family Christmas cards. Fortunately, there are many easy to use programs, like Canva.com, that makes the process so much easier. With these types of programs, you have the option of dragging and dropping images and text from an online library. This makes the learning curve easier and gives you satisfying results today instead of down the road when you’ve finally mastered that design program.

3. Add Fun Christmas Images

Certain images, like Santa and his elves, Christmas bulbs, and holly leaves, inevitably wind up on holiday cards because they’re a type of visual shorthand. In other words, it’s easier to conjure up holiday cheer with these images appearing on holiday cards. If you’d like to add a few of these kinds of villages, look for Christmas SVG or JPEG files. These types of digital files usually slide into design programs very easily, and because they’re already ready-made, you don’t have to worry about drawing or designing them yourself.

4. Add Humor and Seasonal Joy

Christmas time is supposed to be about joy and fun, yet often, it just means stress for so many people. That’s why it’s such a good idea to add a bit of humor and fun to your family Christmas card. It could be an inside joke from the family or a favorite pun. It doesn’t have to be complicated to be appreciated. Your Christmas humor, along with your beautiful family photos, could be just the thing to brighten someone’s day.

The most professional-looking family Christmas cards rely on a bit of alchemy. Certainly, they include lovely family photos, but they also have humor, personal pictures, and stunning Christmas-themed images. If you include all of these elements on your family Christmas card, you’re sure to create a work of art that your family and friends will want to display all season long.