The holiday season is set to round out what has been a crazy or tragic year for many people. With its new designs, Shutterfly is aiming to put joy back into the holidays.
"We have certainly said all along that this is a year unlike any other," said Jim Hilt, president of the online printing company. "We know that families are really looking to stay more connected than ever before."
According to a Shutterfly survey conducted in partnership with Ipsos, 56 percent of Americans believe there will be fewer in-personal holiday celebrations this year compared to last year.
The survey also showed 62 percent are planning to send cards this year, which Hilt said is significantly up from previous years.
Some of the card examples provided by Shutterfly include slogans such as "Good Riddance 2020," "happy 2021 (finally)," and "our real life looks nothing like this" next to a staged family photo.
"We know that families are going to show up in fundamentally exciting ways," Hilt said. "They're going to use all sorts of crazy photos because frankly it's been kind of a crazy year."
Millennials are particularly embracing the idea of the holiday card. The survey showed 17 percent of respondents are planning to send cards for the first time, but that number jumps to nearly 40 percent when just looking at millennials.
"When you step back and think about what a holiday card is, it isn't just a card," Hilt said. "It's a reflection about life and how your year went. And it's also a way for you to actually share love, and it's effectively kind of a gift. So when people aren't able to get out and about, aren't able to travel as much, aren't going to spend as much time with the people that they would normally see over the holidays, the holiday card is a great way for them to stay connected."
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A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
