Making my holiday card vision come to life

This is our second year taking holiday portraits. The first year we did a traditional picture dressed in your typical red and green formal attire. I felt like it was obligatory to do but I knew that after last year, I wanted to have a theme. I LIVE for themed anything.

This year I decided we were going to reach epic levels of peak noir with our card because …#blackmagic (not the wicked kind).

When Kya, owner of RainbowMe Kids sent me an email about her ladies holiday shirts with a Beyonce theme, it was like the light bulb went off. I knew I had to have one and everyone else had to get “in formation” with something representing back Christmas and thus, peak noir Christmas was born.

This shirt is so dope! I love the play on Beyonce’s hit song, “Formation”  but with a Christmas twist. It’s really comfy and well-made, but aside from that, Kya offers awesome customer service! We had a mix-up with the shirt, but she was in touch with me the entire time and was quick to answer any questions I had. Like, seriously, go check her site out because she has some very cool things happening there for kids of color.

Alright, I had me down, but I still needed something for my husband and The Kid.

Instagram is great for looking at pictures and now videos, but I’ve found it to be a great resource for finding small businesses.  One day I found myself down the Instagram rabbit hole and stumbled upon Greentop Gifts.

This husband and wife duo created the character Clarence Claus, who is a black Santa. They not only have T-shirts, but they have wrapping paper too *squeals*! It’s everything I’ve been looking for. I purchased the T-shirt for my husband and a roll of wrapping paper, which I used as a prop in the photo.

Last, but certainly not least was getting the right shirt for The Kid. I  was reading a holiday gift guide looking for inspiration when I noticed Brown Girls Club. Since I am a brown girl raising a brown girl, I immediately checked the site out.

A few clicks later and there it was: The exact shirt I needed to complete my vision. The only thing was the shirt I wanted was a onesie and my daughter probably wouldn’t be able to fit it.

So, I took a chance and emailed the owner,  Crystal Swain-Bates to see if she could help me and when I tell you she went above and beyond! Customer service is everything to me and she knocked it out the park. Because of time constraints, I ordered from her Amazon store, but the day it was supposed to arrive I got an email stating that the size I ordered could not be fulfilled.

Talk about heartbroken. I reached back out to Crystal to see if she knew what was going on and from then on, she did everything in her power to make sure I got a shirt. Bomb.com.

To add to my peak noir flavor, I created these ornaments. I knew my background was going to have a tree, so I wanted to make it look like my tree. They are a little bootleg, but you get the picture.

I picked the colors red, black and green to represent the African flag and the two in the middle say #BlackFamilyGoals and Black Christmas Matters because all black everything.

Overall, I’m happy with how our pictures came out. I wish you could see the ornaments better on our Christmas card, but there’s always next year!

Happy Holidays from my family to yours.

-Whitney-