Happy Friday everyone! Is it crazy to anyone else that a) Thanksgiving is next week and b) that Christmas and Hannukah are right around the corner?! How did that happen? I confess, though I love geting holiday cards, I've never been one to send them out myself. It always seemed like such a monumental task to get everyone's addresses, to get a decent picture made of B and me, and then to address and mail out 100 or so cards. However, last year, three years into our marriage, I attempted to send out Christmas cards for the first time.

Of course, there were a series of mishaps: (1) Our card turned out weirdly dark and grainy, as you can see in the opening photo. (2) When I tried to get the cards remade, the card company was going to charge us all over again (for a 10% discount - thanks a lot!) so I was stuck with the dark, grainy ones. (3) Gathering addresses by combing through emails, texts, and our wedding guest list took FOREVER. (4) Actually writing notes and hand-addressing envelopes also took far longer than I thought. In fact, it took so long, that I think many people didn't get their cards until after Christmas, and some didn't get them at all because I got so tired I gave up about 3/4 of the way through! (Please somebody tell me how all of you moms out there – with babies and toddlers! – have the time and energy to get Christmas cards out on time, and I cannot get it together?! It seriously blows my mind. But I digress...)

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I might have given up on holiday cards forever, had Brandon not recently created, quite possibly, the most brilliant product of all time: Hey Everybody! If you read the blog with any frequency, you know that my husband is a tech genius. He built and designed my blog, and over the past year, he built an incredible wedding-planning tool called Hello Wedding, which essentially automates all the tedious parts of planning a wedding, from address collection to managing RSVP's to creating seating charts. And now, just in time for the holidays, he's releasing a product that has given me hope that even I can attempt to send out Christmas cards this year!!

So let me tell you why Hey Everybody! is amazing. Basically, it boils down the holiday-card-sending process into 4 insanely easy steps:

(1) Make your list – either by typing out names, by linking your Facebook account and dragging friends into a list, or by importing a list that you've already created.

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(2) Connect your contacts – by linking your email accounts, Hey Everybody! can quickly grab everyone's email addresses (and you just choose the ones that are correct) and add them into the list.

(3) Next, you send out a cute email form to everyone on your holiday card list asking for their mailing addresses. (All they have to do is fill it out and submit it, and their addresses automatically go into your Hey Everybody! database).

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(4) While you wait on addresses, you can shop for cute cards from Minted, Zazzle, Tiny Prints, and Artifact Uprising – with all sorts of great discounts – and design and order your cards. You then have two choices: address them by hand using your brand new (etiquettely-correct) address list OR if you are using Minted cards, you can import your address list and they will address and send out them out for you!! And most amzingly of all – aside from the cards and postage – this incredible service is free!

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I don't know about you, but with everything else going on, I am ALL about making Christmas cards as hassle-free as possible. I am so proud of my amazing husband for designing this, and I hope you all will give it a try – and share it with friends! I think you're going to love it!! I've already gotten started collecting my addresses - give it a try this weekend and see how fun it is!

And if you do try it out, please feel free to send us any feedback on what you like/dislike – I know he wants to make it as easy-to-use as possible!

Happy (almost) Holidays!

xo, Anna