Christmas Cards Extraordinaire!

If you've been to the house I grew up in (in Naperville), you'll notice a bevy of mounted and framed Christmas cards with dates and names on them. These cards are the annual winners of the Sutton Family Christmas Card Contest. Every year since 1973 I believe, our family has gathered together sometime in January and voted on the best Christmas card sent to my parents. It's kind of a fun little thing and I even produced a story for NPR about it complete with taped interviews and back ground sound of the event taking place. It's fun, though there are rules to prevent cheating, which my sisters will attempt at any opportunity (JK gals, or am I?). One rule is that you're not allowed to vote for your own card until later in the narrowing down process. There's a whole list of them which maybe I'll post tomorrow if I can find the file.

So in honor of that event, here are the best cards I received this year:

Since I sent a ton of cards this year, I also received a ton. These were just some of the best. The Santa suit card is actually a little cut out glued to the top of the card. Pretty cute, thanks Dan and Katie! The dog with hat card is just damn funny. Inside was a picture of Maria's dog also wearing a hat!! Very funny. The two dogs on the sled might be odds on to win the Sutton household competition this year, so I can't reveal the sender. Same with the dog pulling the bells. One of our many rules for selecting Christmas cards is that you're not allowed to look inside to see who sent it. My sister Lori is a frequent abuser of this rule.

The Cubs player in front of Wrigley was sent by my fellow Cubs lover, Dez. We played co-ed softball together and I think she has season tickets. The last two cards were both entries from my Jewish brethren! The penguins on the hill came from a long time friend and past coworker, Laurie. The tree in winter card came from my business partner (Michael) who is also the parent of frequent poster Alexis. If I had to bet though, I'd put money that his wife Gloria picked out the card. Ha!

That's it for today. Hope you were able to see the Boise State versus Oklahoma game last night. If night, search it out on ESPN on reruns. It was one of the best football games I've ever seen and the ending (the last four minutes of regulation and then overtime) couldn't have been scripted better! Just fantastic.