Guest Author - Evanne Schmarder

We RVers are a convivial bunch. We love our rigs, love traveling, love making friends and love staying in touch. When the Christmas holidays roll around we most certainly want to share our passion for RVing and tell of where we’ve been. Finding the perfect means for this communication can differ as much as RVs.

The first couple of years my husband and I were on the road fulltime we wanted to share with our stick home friends as well as our new mobile community all the exciting goings on of the past year. We were computer-less so we composed a holiday letter by hand with a great (stick figure) illustration of “us on the road”. We copied the letter on green paper at the local copy shop, purchased and applied Christmas stamps and off they went – an affirmation of the crazy but delightful direction our life had taken.

When a laptop entered our home we decided to use my design skills to print up a “newsletter” version of that year’s holiday letter. What fun. We added a couple photos, a graphic and all the news that was fit to print. We created some nifty holiday return address stickers, stamped them with the requisite Christmas stamps and mailed them all across the country.

Next year we went another techno-step. We created a holiday letter but this time we pdf’d it and emailed it to our friends and family. Those without email addresses received hard copies – just like the previous year.

I know what you’re thinking – yep, as you might imagine there was plenty of news of our joyful lives but what was really enjoyed by friends and family was a mention of their name and some brief news if we’d had the good fortune to visit them. And in all balancing fairness, we mentioned cruddy workamping jobs and road mishaps. It can’t all be a bed of roses!

In search of a different tactic that conveyed our continuing life on the road, the following year we went in search of cards that represented our situation. We found some RV cards at Camping World – but alas, we were too late to score the 5th wheel designs. With no interest in sending a holiday card with another rig type we decided to fire up the old laptop and see what kind of Christmas magic we could conjure. The RV Christmas cards and RV note cards I made were delightful – so delightful, in fact, that I took part in the RV park’s holiday craft show weekends and was surprised by the overwhelming interest from other RVers.

That was the birth of our first RV-based business – still going strong. RV note cards and RV Christmas cards. Being an RVer we knew our customers – fellow RVers - wanted RV card designs that reflected their lifestyle and their RVs. To my 5th wheel RV Christmas card we added a class A motorhome, a class C motorhome and a travel trailer RV Christmas card design. Inside the cards I included a greeting from my heart – “Wishing you a season of dreams come true. Happy holidays and a wonderful New Year!!” We found a print house and the results impressed even me. We also designed and printed blank-inside note cards with those 4 RV types mentioned in 5 fabulous locations across the US – after all, we RVers move about the country. Can’t send a seashore RV note card from the desert!!

I can’t tell you how tickled our recipients are. In fact, on many occasions - as we visit those we love - we’ve seen our cards propped on mantles and posted on refrigerators – in the middle of the summer! Yep, we say, that’s our place!!