Skinny Christmas 2025
Hey look, you got our Christmas card!
📢 Big shout out to USPS for making that happen (an instituion that's been around since 1775)! 📢
FAQ's
What’s the lore behind skinny Christmas??
Skinny is the nickname given to Ricky many years ago by some of the coolest people around. He’s ran with the name and has made it a brand. Skinny Christmas cards have been in rotation since 2019 with some pretty unique takes on the holiday tradition.
Check out some older ones: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019
Why is the photo grainy?
That’s because it was shot on our Pentax 17 35mm film camera, with Harman Phoenix—unedited and in one take! We took the photo in Lucketts, Virginia and patiently waited to churn through the full roll of 361 photos before getting it developed in Austin, TX.
What’s the theme?
This year’s theme was Back to the Basics. In our modern world of AI slop, robots dogs, and perpetual connected-ness, we thought we'd switch it up by slowing down. Our photo inspiration was only assisted by 8oz of coffee, and no LLMs were harmed in the process. What you see is what you get: captured on film, filter-free, and authentic2.
We made the matchbooks by hand, too!
What have Eric and Ricky been up to?
- Started and stopped running (ambitious but also realistic!)
- Hiked a little bit, including Big Bend with Eric's adventurous mother
- Cooked a lot (Eric read Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat and was inspired)
- Drank a lot of coffee
- Stopped making cookies (RIP)
- Visited New Orleans (and was soberly entertained by Bourbon St.)
- Took a trip to ABQ (home of the hit show Breaking Bad and soon to be hit show of Pluribus)
- Went to Waco AND the Dr. Pepper museum (truly the intellectual vacation we all need)
- Took a quick stop in New York (to briefly see the Cleveland Browns and Reneé Rapp, and the top of Trisha Paytas' head)
- Visited family at Lake Gaston
- Orienteering in a National Park (because regular family time isn't adventurous enough)
- Read a lot
- Did film photography (see above)
- Took a vintage photo (one vintage photo. Just one.)
- Painted original art (Picasso could never)
- Fought a lot (growth is messy)
- Fell more in love (plot twist!)
- Started leading a team (and was humbled by good leaders)
- Learned to sew
- Camped (that's when you voluntarily sleep outside)
- Saw Djo in Salt Lake City
- Grew a digital garden in Stardew Valley (the most productive procrastination)
- Gained muscle (wins!)
- Wrote a bit (including this chaotic year recap, apparently)
Overall, it was a year of contradictions, small adventures, and character development. What else could we ask for?
What’s next?
We're moving! But only to Pflugerville - so update your Christmas cards, folks. Next year we'll be coming to you live from suburbia!
Savvy readers will notice that because the Pentax 17 is actually a half-frame camera, we actually get about 72 photos per role of film, because it splits each of the 36mm wide photos into two, hence, 17.↩
We did use a photo editor to add a text overlay, but we swear, we didn't mess with the rest of the photo!↩