Five Ideas for Sharing Holiday Photos, Wishes

Looking to mix things up this year and not send out the same page-long written family letter with a photo card to catch up friends and family on all 12 months?

Here are five other ways to share photos, videos, and holiday wishes with loved ones—as long as they have an Internet connection.

Photo slideshows: You can put together the year in photos of family happenings and share it with a slideshow. Flickr has an easy-to-use slideshow feature. Make a set of photos, set the privacy controls to family and friends, and invite them to view the photos. Clicking on the slideshow link in the top-right corner will unveil the photo show. You can also make and send links to slideshows on Photobucket, Snapfish, and Smilebox. Smilebox makes easy work of putting together a unique, creative photo and video slideshow, set to music.

Video messages: Record a video message to family and friends—or a few different messages for different friends and relatives—then send the link with a written message. Lots of sites will do the job: Yahoo! Video, Google Video, Smilebox, and EyeSpot are just a few.

Collage cards: Sharing photos and messages on the web is nice (while doing your part to reduce paper use around the holidays), but some of us like the tradition of snail-mail holiday cards. Collage cards are a recent addition to several photo sites. Check out the many offerings on Shutterfly, Kodak, and PhotoWorks.

Family blog: Feeling extra ambitious (and long on some spare time)? Consider setting up a family blog to post images and writings about the year, and invite other family members to add their thoughts, images, and greetings. Sites such as Typepad, Families.com, and the FamilyPost.com are a few that make building a family web site with photos and writings easy. The FamilyPost has some holiday templates to work with.

Unique greetings: Create your own card design or choose from several unique designs by artists on Zazzle. Zazzle features members' artwork for sale, and card designs are no exception. FamilyFun has lots of ideas and directions for making artful cards with the kids or whimsical photo card greetings.

Got another favorite way to share family photos, happenings, and holiday greetings? Please share below.