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Christmas Cards

Click to enlarge	Year
	2022 I don't have any new ideas, so I guess I'll stick with the Vintage Cards. The Pals were an inside joke; they hate each other!
	2021 Dogs were my favorite in this one.
	2020 Welcoming my granddogger Hallie!
	2019 I like Diane on this one in particular.
	2018 I think this came out fairly well, but I worked on that bottom left corner forever. I think I re-did it 10 times, then when I printed it, all of the clothes came out dark blue! Thanks to special guest stars, cigar-smoking Uncke Tim, Grandma and Grandpap Counihan and Hartman, and my soon-to-be son-in-law Dan.
	2017 I liked this one, but I couldn't get Ruby to blend in well.
	2016 Not real happy with this one. Everything just seems to blend together, I don't know why. Maybe the bells are too cartoony and soft? Or, to my color-blind eye, Ruby is almost the same color as the bells?
	2015 We're all kids at Christmas. If you've seen all the Coke stuff in my gameroom, you're wondering why I haven't done this one before. Ruby is a Frankenpuppy, with parts from several different pictures. Faces didn't blend too well, even though I re-did John several times.
	2014 So I get em all printed up and go to get stamps, and they have Rudolph stamps! Did not know it was the 50th anniversary. Serendipity.
	2013 When I took a picture of the dog pulling on something, she looked insane, so I went with this one, which doesn't work too well.
	2012 I'm hungry for gumdrops, anybody else?
	2011 I was going to have Ruby carrying Nutcracker-me away in her teeth, but took the easy way out instead.
	2010 We've got a new addition to the family, so I've got a few more ideas. That's our fireplace, someone else's fire. Not too happy with the way the faces blend into the lights. I originally tried the color over each face but it didn't look good.
	2009 This is my last idea (at the moment). John has been a Peanuts nut for a few years now, so he got to be Charlie Brown and Caitlin is Linus. I originally wanted our faces to be cartoonish, but it just didn't work. The first card without Tanner, but it's got a beagle nonetheless.
	2008 Okay, one more. But next year I'm just buying them at the store (yeah right). My Dad loved this movie. So, what did I do wrong on this one? Diane's face didn't blend in too well. It looks the flagpole goes under Caitlin's chin, but that's what it was like in the original picture. I had already merged the pictures together before I thought of putting me on the porch; I would have left more headroom. I erased too much of the left leg. There should be shadows under the Tanners. I had to make the E in Merry from other letters and it doesn't look great. Oh well, I could have worked on it for hours more and it still wouldn't have been perfect.
	2007 It's A Wonderful Life is one of my favorite movies, Christmas or otherwise. Jimmy Stewart is great. This one came together pretty well. I liked the way Diane's face fit into Donna Reed's in the phone scene. Tanner's Potter looks pretty mean. Tanner passed away in 2008, so this may be the last card; she made them fun.
	2006 I love A Christmas Carol and will watch any version that comes on, but George C. Scott's is the best. John is wearing my Santa Claus wig and beard.
	2005 My wife and I coincidentally joined the church choir after this. I think I made the 2005 Answering Machine Greeting around this time.
	2004 The tree, bulbs, decorations and gifts were all made with Paint Shop Pro's picture tubes; I didn't steal any images from the web for a change.
	2003 My most ambitious card. That's the entire Counihan clan at the time (we've had one more nephew since then). Most of the outfits came from Costume websites and I just put the heads on. My Dad was grateful for the hair and at least one sister-in-law was thankful for her boob job. There's a lot of scale problems that bother me now. After I printed them all up, I realized that I forgot Tanner's camel costume, so I added that here.
	2002 Don't remember much about this one. Tanner sure enjoys being mean to me, doesn't she?
	2001 I think we had decided we were done with the big Halloween Parties (and therefore the big invitations), so I decided to spend more time on the Christmas cards. My Dad had just ridden the sled down his icy driveway (at age 76) so I thought that would be a fun background. I knew I wanted to do snowmen, then the Tanner idea hit me and the rest is Christmas card history. Not real happy with my eyes on this. Dad and Tanner both passed away in 2008 and we all miss them both very much.

Yes, Virginia...

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