I had a lot of pre-holiday media appearances on my calendar this year. These included a feature in the Philadelphia Inquirer and a syndicated TV spot on having a green-and-frugal Christmas, which Google Alerts has informed me ran in Austin, Boston, Cedar Rapids, Milwaukee, Philadelphia and more. Because of these media commitments, our home had to be decked out for the holidays long before I’d even purchased our Thanksgiving turkey.

So I guess it makes perfect sense that with our holiday timing all out of whack, I never got around to doing holiday cards until after the holidays were over. I thought I might get away with a year without cards, but when so many gorgeous greetings kept rolling in after both Christmas and Chanukah were already over, I changed my mind. I figured if everyone else was behind schedule, what was stopping me for sending some holiday cheer via the United States Postal Service? (Note to self: I still need to tip the mailman–and keep it under $20–along with the UPS guy, the garbage men and more. I told you I’m behind schedule.)

A few years ago when I found myself in a similar last-minute holiday card dilemma. A friend had recommended I go the online-photo card route, so I logged onto Snapfish.com, the online photo site that HP owns. There I created a quick card that was shipped promptly and took care of my greeting needs.

This time around, though, I waited too long to place my online order. Because I wasn’t getting online until after Christmas Day, this meant that any card I created on either Snapfish or Shutterfly (another online photo site) wouldn’t have arrived until well into the second week of January. In my mind that was just a bit too late and pathetic for a belated holiday greeting.

But when I clicked around the Snapfish website to see if I had any other options that wouldn’t kill me in shipping costs, I discovered that I could place my Snapfish order and then pick up my photo cards in person the next day at Walgreens. (While Shutterfly has in-person pick-up option for prints with Target, it does not include holidays cards.) Sure, the per-card cost would be a bit more (only one cent), but I would save at least $20 on express shipping and be able to get my cards out in a (reasonably) timely manner.

I ended up choosing a “Happy New Year” theme (no need to pretend that we were actually sending Christmas or Chanukah greetings at this point), uploaded a family photo my mother took of us a few days after Christmas, and in no time at all, my order was processing.

So my goal today is to update my online address book, print out mailing labels and get these cards out into my mailbox. My next goal is to get a little something for all of the people still on my holiday list–like the aforementioned mail carrier; I wonder what kind of holiday goodies the supermarket will have on sale at this time?–and get in my 30 minutes or so on the Wii Fit, our favorite gift from this past holiday season.

How did you handle your holiday greetings this year? Were you able to get them out on time?

Oh, and one more thing–Happy New Year!