Every Christmas Card starts with a ritual to get ourselves in the right head space.

Step 1: We have an extra large binder of double-size prints of all the past cards. We go through the binder looking at things we especially like, the level of silliness that clicks, and all the things we would do differently given a second chance.

Step 2: We get out the file folder with all the scribbles, suggestions, and ideas from past brainstorming that we haven’t developed yet.

Step 3: We sit with all this for a day or two and let it cook.

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With visions of sugar plums dancing in our heads, we head to a coffee shop with our file folder and any new ideas that have been percolating. Keith knew he wanted to use a Ford Model A in the photo and pitched it hard. The most challenging part was figuring out a theme and what to put in the bed of the truck. Here’s that first sketch Keith drew at our Brainstorming Breakfast.

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After sleeping on the conceptual design, we have a few things we need to decide next: (1) what the theme will be, (2) what the caption will say, (3) where the card recipient’s name will be placed, and (4) what The Rat will be doing. I type out the key points of our thought process and we take as many days as needed to get a satisfactory solution for each question. Inevitably, we will change our minds and having all this documented is really helpful in finding our way back after jumping in all those rabbit holes.

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Here’s the original sketch with all our marginalia. The backside of the paper is loaded with even more. Most times the concept comes before the drawing, but this time, the Ford Model A idea came first and the theme followed.

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Keith chose to start the drawing with the Model A pickup truck. The first step is getting some reference photos of the truck. Lucky he has one in the garage.

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Before he can start drawing, Keith has to decide if this will be a horizontal or vertical composition. He played around with both and decided on the vertical composition so there would be space for whatever he sticks in the bed of the truck (e.g., Christmas tree, giant bag of gifts, etc.).

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Next, Keith uses his reference materials to sketch out the pick up truck. He actually discarded this drawing because he didn’t think the shape was quite right.

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There we go! Keith was pleased with this second drawing and is all warmed up on Model A drawing — whatever that means.

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Keith is rendering the truck. He uses mostly Prismacolor colored pencils and is very fussy about the tooth (roughness or smoothness) of the paper so it gives the right textured finish. There’s a little Goldilocks in him. We bought five different papers at Hobby Lobby so he could pick the one that was just right.

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I love this part. It’s where that blank sheet of paper really starts coming to life. Keith leaves the tires unfinished deliberately. You’ll see why in a moment.

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With the majority of the car completed, Keith backtracks. He uses one of his earlier rough sketches to lay in some perspective lines. Since he has no good reference material for the next drawing challenge, this exercise will help him assure the snow ski under each wheel looks appropriate. Yep, snow skis for Model A’s has been a real thing since the vehicles were introduced almost a century ago.

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This is one of several reference photos Keith used to decide how to fit the skis to the car. Rube Goldberg comes to mind.

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With the majority of the car completed, Keith backtracks. He uses one of his earlier rough sketches to lay in some perspective lines. Since he has no reference material for the next part, this will help him assure the snow ski under each wheel looks appropriate.

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After a little relaxation, Keith is ready to start on the Keith and Mary cartoons. We take photographs of each other in the pose he plans to use. We snap about a dozen photos of each of us. Often for these photos, he forces us to wear a costume so he can get folds and shadows right in the drawing. The worst for me was baggy red long johns for the hippie card. For him, I think he’d say the fairy card. Maybe that’s why we’ve never divorced: we have decades of blackmail photos on each other!

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I really love this drawing of Keith. I think I should have it printed on a hoodie! He’ll always be Santa to me.

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After his head, Keith draws his body and clothes. You can see why those reference photos are so important.

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This is where Keith starts digitally assembling the card. He uploads an image of the truck, his head, and his body. He resizes the images and moves them to fit where he wants them on the card. Keith also adds a background.

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Now it’s my turn. Keith draws my head based on that trusty photo reference material.

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With the majority of the car completed, Keith backtracks. He uses one of his earlier rough sketches to lay in some perspective lines. Since he has no reference material for the next part, this will help him assure the snow ski under each wheel looks appropriate.

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At last, I’m sitting in the truck also. Not quite a Dairy Queen level milestone, but worthy of some hot chocolate on the patio on an unseasonably warm December day. The thermometer says mid-fifties! Holy Mistletoe!

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Phase 3 begins and is mostly a batch of local color pieces. The first he undertakes is a deer holding a sign who will be in the bed of the truck behind the cab. I love this little guy's expression. Adorable.

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Next Keith invents a logo for our Deer Dash delivery service giving a polite nod to the logo for Door Dash, the inspiration for our card concept this year.

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The Rat is a cartoon Keith made back in his railroad days. It found it’s way on a lot of the art he made for his employers. This imaginary little rodent moved in with us when Keith retired and became a favorite pet of the grandkids, and started bombing our Christmas card. This is what Keith devised for him this year. You can read more about The Rat, a highly mischievous and narcissistic creature, on the Christmas Card page of our website.

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Still in Phase 3, I snapped pictures of some of Keith’s sketchbook doodles. Except for The Rat (bottom center), these are all conceptual drawings for the deer Santa is hauling in the bed of the pickup truck.

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This is the final iteration of the truck bed deer. I think we could make a card out of this - a take on the” see no evil/hear no evil/speak no evil” monkeys. Ah, I should write that down on our idea list. These little guys are so cute!

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Keith uploaded and placed his final drawings of the center deer with the sign, the Deer Dash logo, the mouse and his mailbox. He also fit all the extra deer in the back of the truck, made the struts for the snow skis, added a little blank yellow license plate, and gave me a Rudolph nose. We also suffered over different captions which were funny but too long. We finally came up with one we both liked. Then Keith added the text and deemed the card completed. This point is also my deadline to get all the labels made, stuck on the envelopes, and alphabetized. I also need to have them stamped and the return addresses written on them. But we are still not ready for the printer! I need to make two files of about 100 cards each and enter people’s names on the little yellow license plate on each card. It takes awhile, but I love this part.

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We have a few different high-quality printers we use, and always pick the one with the shortest lead time (which can consume up to a week). Lucky us! One of them can turn the cards in one day. I always document the job for them and deliver the files on a thumb drive. It’s the “out to dinner” milestone once the card is delivered to the printer.

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Keith has a small group of people for whom he does a remarque of The Rat on the back of their card - mostly railroad friends. A remarque is a personal message or image hand-drawn by the artist. It’s usually drawn in the margins of a print, or sometimes directly on the design itself. This makes each remarque a little original, one-of-a-kind piece of art.

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Over breakfast, Keith critiques my different ideas for a hand-written message on the back of the card. I don’t see why we write anything since we put a caption at the bottom, but I defer to him since he is the captain of this project and I am the shipmate. He liked this little poem:

No wrapped gift
don’t make this hard
no fine wine
it’s just the card

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Once the cards are all signed, we alphabetize them, just like we did with the envelopes earlier. This makes stuffing and sealing the envelopes go smoothly. Christmas carols are on high volume and we get a second wind with the Post Office on the horizon. At last, we find ourselves on route to deliver our cargo. We order pizza on the way home and sing carols in the car. The cards are DONE. There you go. You should be able to make your own Christmas cards now.

Mary May