3 Ways to Send Holiday Greetings and Photos Without Leaving Your Computer

Instead of the usual paper cards why not send some fun electronic cards via email, or a slide show instead of a holiday newsletter? It's easy, quick, and a lot of fun for recipients. Try these sites for a great, non-traditional way to send holiday greetings, and photos without leaving your computer desk.

www.bhg.com/santa

This is a link from Better Homes and Gardens magazine. Every year they have different features included on their website to make your holidays full of cheer. This year, they have a unique way to send a personalized message via email. This isn't your regular old ecard with some animation and a little song and dance number; instead you can actually record a voice message to be sent to your friends and loved ones this season. It's easy to get started with "Merry Messages." All you need to do is go to the website address and "Santa" will explain to you how the features work. Choose from a variety of characters including Ms. Claus, a Snowman, an elf, or Santa himself. You can choose a wintry snowflake quartet background, Christmas trees, a quaint snow-covered homestead, and a hockey rink, just to name a few. Change the accessories that your chosen character is holding, put them in non-characteristic garb, or switch their hats. After you have your e-card display, you can type or record a message to your lucky recipient. The characters move around a little, blink, and do some animated motions in a sequence. I recommend the buck-toothed elf in hockey gear against the hockey rink scene. Fun.

www.shutterfly.com

And if you haven't heard of shutterfly.com yet, now is the best time to learn. There are tons of features offered on this site to showcase your holiday photo memories. One of them is a DVD slide show of your photos. To get started, you will need to sign up and upload the pictures you want to be on the DVD slideshow. Customize the music your pictures will be shown with, and choose from a variety of templates and borders for your photos. There are some samples on the first page that show you a little clip of pre-made photo DVDs to give you an idea of what you can do with yours and what it can look like. If your photos aren't perfect when you upload them you can also use shutterfly's software to crop, enhance, and correct the nefarious red-eye problems. One custom made DVD slide show is $15.99, and you can do the whole thing right from your computer and have it sent to your recipients, or sent it to yourself to wrap and give. It's that simple.

www.photocrazed.com

Photo Crazed is another great way to share your holiday photos without leaving your computer. Unlike shutterfly.com, photocrazed.com is for the more artistically inclined. You can get your images made into pop art stylings and printed onto a canvas. The average pricing is just under $200 for a 11X14 sized canvas print with a frame. You can choose from filmstrip style, retro art, comic strip, paneled multiplications in black and white or crazy colors, and so much more. You can turn your family photos into a work of art in no time with the help of Photo Crazed, and get it framed for future memories too. This is a great gift for anyone who loves art, or loves unique gifts. There are so many ways to customize on Photo Crazed that there's a style for every taste. And the best part is that you will never have to leave your computer.