Holiday card problems

I have sent out a holiday card with family picture faithfully for many years to a huge list (160 names). This year the photography studio we used changed their pricing structure, and suddenly the 50% cut on price we used to get by having the picture done early was only 10%. And then there were car problems, and I finally decided, regretfully, that although I would have the portrait taken, I couldn't afford to do a card this year. It wouldn't hurt to skip a year; I could resume it next year and hopefully the budget would be a little better.

Then Rob unexpectedly got a big check from a legal client. Hey! Holiday cards were back on. But now we were so close to Christmas that we'd have to pay full retail, and I balked at that, and so took our negatives to another printer.

The portrait that our regular studio took is lovely, but the printer's job of the holiday cards made from it was awful! They didn't even try to balance the color or anything, and we all look pale and washed out, like vampires.

I was slow getting my holiday letter written--depression put me into such a funk that I couldn't quite think of what to say. But I finally got a draft scratched up. But now my computer is on the fritz and I can't finalize it or print it. Rob thinks that a Windows system file got corrupted or lost when he defragmented the hard drive. Fortunately, all our data seems to be secure, but it looks as though he's going to have to copy the data off, reformat the hard drive, reinstall Windows, and reload the data. So it'll be at least a couple of days before the job will be done. I have several days off work, but Rob's working full time and so best case scenario is I won't even be able to start for another two or three days or so.

So, I'll have a letter this year. But the picture is ugly. And it will be late. *Sigh*