The first one I created was in 2005.

I really wanted to add some important elements from my life including my kidney stone children and Spock, my pet Betta, into a card that I was sending out to family and close friends.

For 2006 I wanted to save myself some creation time, so I looked for a good Christmas image to place myself into without having to add too many extra elements.  First I looked for the typical scene of either Christ’s birth or Santa Claus.  Then, almost by accident, I came across this image from the 1946 movie “It’s A Wonderful Life” and thought it’d be perfect.  It’s Christmas, it’s cute and there was room to add me in.  Also made sure to add my kidney stones again.

In 2007 I decided to go back to a typical Christmas visual…and then have lots of fun with it.  This is a painting called “The Visit of the Wise-men.” The painter is unfortunately unknown.  I wanted to do something silly and the Wii was the big, hard-to-find item that year.  I figured if anyone could get one it would be Jesus.  But of course he’d need an outlet to plug it in to.  The Enterprise schematic and gold Mickey ears were added just to be really odd and out of place.  Kidney stones were now a regular for all my cards, since they are genuinely my children.

Then, in 2008, I needed another change.  Still wanted a Christmas visual but wanted to go a different direction again.  Hence the Peanuts Christmas Special image.  I thought that putting myself in with the rest of the kids would make it silly and creepy at the same time.  For the first time I started placing some regular elements, like my talisman, the snowman and the lamppost, the Mickey ears, my camera and some straws.

For 2009 I went back to a classic Christmas setting, adding myself into another nativity scene, replete once again with silly elements from my life.  This is a painting by Jacob de Backer.  I had to flip the image because my right hand had to be holding the camera.  If I would have flipped myself then the Nikon label on the camera would have been backward.  It was just easier to flip the image. This time I added my Plantronics Discovery 925 bluetooth cell phone headset as a life element.  And I just love interacting with people inside the image.