Photo Collage Announcements - bday? t'giving? christmas?

[babymama]

I'm considering sending out a 4x6 photo collage of Santiago's first year for either his bday or Christmas. Looking for advice on
1) whether we should do this for his bday or wait for Christmas (1 month later, basically)
2) If we do it for his b-day and not christmas...Can you suggest some language for the text? I don't want it to seem like we're fishing for gifts.

Another option would be to send them out for Thanksgiving (about a week after his bday) and say something like "We are thankful this year for yor friendship and for all you've done to bring joy to our lives." Not the right words, but you get the picture. Hmmmh.....I'm liking this idea better now. Only thing is that either in text or photos we'd probably have we'd have to tie in DH and me.

The photo collage (or some version of it) will also appear on a bday party invite, but we're keeping his party very small - family and maybe 10 other people. We never sent out birth announcements, and I think a part of me wants to make up for it.

Any advice you can offer would be much appreciated.

Lydia
Mama to Santiago, born 11/16/03

[hez]

We did a collage for Payton's birthday-- and used it as a 4x6 on his invitation. I put in two lines of text below the pics-- 'Payton's First Year' and 'September 6, 2003'. For the invites we sent to family members unlikely to be able to attend I did write a separate note that we just wanted to share the collage with them-- no gifts please. In retrospect, I wish I would have done that on all the invites. But I digress...

I like your Thanksgiving idea, too. DH just did a collage of some pumpkin patch pictures of Payton for our desktop backgrounds. 3 of the 12 pics have one of us in them. The rest have Payton on his own, and I think it's a pretty good balance. You could do something like that, and still have the main focus be your DS.

You'll have to share the collage when you're done-- I love looking at babies, and as a side benefit, getting ideas from everyone's creativity!

[Momof3Labs]

I like the T'giving and Christmas ideas since you are doing a small b'day party. Non-holiday announcements seem like a ploy for gifts to many, even though I know that's not what you intend by it. But since the holidays are close by, I can't imagine that you'd ruffle any feathers by doing it at that time!

Sounds like a great idea, btw, definitely a card that I would keep around when most others get tossed!

[babymama]

Thanks for your advice, ladies! I think I may go with a Thanksgiving card for the many people I won't be inviting to the bday party.

Thanks again,
Lydia
Mama to Santiago, born 11/16/03

[lmintzer]

Definitely Thanksgiving! I always think it's neat to do holiday cards in a non-traditional way. Two years ago, we sent New Year's cards. Last year with Joshua's birth in the late fall, we decided to wait and do Valentine's Day cards. We never do traditional holiday cards. For us, it's because we're Jewish and don't celebrate Christmas. But even that aside, I like the idea of surprising people at different times of year.