After three decades of shooting these holiday photo cards, you’d think I’d have the process down pat, but this year’s image(s) turned out to be the hardest card I’ve ever shot. For a fifty-year-old man with way more salt than pepper in his hair, I was happy and relieved to see that I can still rise to the occasion when called. The images here are a hat-tip and nod to the provocative past, a timely wink to our selfie/dick-pic-obsessed current culture, and a cheeky testament to the 30th anniversary of my very first holiday card pic.

Intended to be both trendy and timeless, this card is hopefully everything you expected, dreaded, and wished for from the questionable depths of my creative prowess – equal parts amusing, offensive, inflammatory, ridiculous, porny, obscene, silly, grotesque, colorful, wonky, wanky, and wildly un-Christian. The very best of Christmas past, present, and future to come, with enough innuendo to erect the highest of holiday spirits.

Speaking of erecting things, this isn’t the first time my North pole has held up a Santa’s hat in service of a holiday card – somewhere around 1999 there was a photo card that featured a fully-naked body shot save for the iconic hat hung only by all that nature gave me – a card that has since been lost to time (and if ever I dig it up I’ll add it to the pantheon).

As for a few behind-the-scenes tidbits out of which you may get your own rise and chuckle, test shots for this year’s image were conducted on a birthday trip to Boston with Suzie, who had no real idea of what was going on behind the closed bedroom door, and who wouldn’t have batted an eyelash even if she had. That original concept had a full body and face shot, with Santa hats on both heads – the first working title being ‘A Hat for Every Head‘, but my body was not quite fit for such a full reveal, and my artistic eye wasn’t happy with such a blatant display when good erotica is all about seduction and mystery; it all fell a little limp until I played around with things in the following days, in which this more coy concept firmed up, giving a bigger hint and some mystery for the viewer to spin their own holiday fantasy about what happens when the hat comes off.

Hard copies (pun absolutely intended) of this card were mailed out December 9, 2025, and scented with ‘Overture’ by Amouage – a boisterous oud-heavy stomper designed to be as potentially off-putting and repellant as the card itself. That’s how we’ve rolled for thirty years ~ Happy Holidays!

Previous Holiday Photo Cards Through the Years:

• 2004: The Snow Queen
• 2005: Disco Ball Shock Jock
• 2006: Christmas Crucifixion
• 2007: Bad Dumpster Santa
• 2008: Beautiful Christmas By the Sea
• 2009: Angelic Ass
• 2010: The Wedding Card
• 2011: Uncle Al’s Radio Flyer
• 2012: Eat Your Holiday Heart Out
• 2013: The Baby Brothers Ilagan
• 2014: Let It Snow
• 2015: A Holiday Ax to Grind
• 2016: Little Baby Jesus
• 2017: Classy Condo Cheers
• 2018: Incendiary Reflection
• 2019: Bake Me a Man
• 2020: A Family Affair
• 2021: Winter Slumber
• 2022: The Godfather
• 2023: Father Time
• 2024: Shitter’s Full

Thirty years ago I sent out my first Christmas photo card as documented in this blog post. It probably went out to be about 25 people if my increasingly-bleak memory serves, and I probably thought that was a heavy lift. It made as much of a splash as such things did in the late 90’s, which was a kinder, more quaint time in our history – more seemingly innocent and soft – and ripe for the sort of hard-edged bondage shot that went out that first year. It was the start of a tradition that has reached its 30th year, and this season’s offering is coming up tomorrow, so bookmark this blog if you don’t want to miss out.

Every parent has a favorite child, admitted or not (according to several parents I know) and I absolutely have a favorite holiday card. I won’t play coy or beat around the bush as that is definitely not my vibe, so I’ll direct you to 2016’s ‘Little Baby Jesus‘ shot to end the suspense. That one came with a trigger warning for the graphic content. (It remains my most controversial, as the first proposed printing company actually returned payment and canceled the order once they saw the picture – the first and thus far only time that’s happened.)

As you might surmise, it’s the supposedly-shocking cards that touch my heart the most, such as the ‘Disco Ball Jock‘ pose from 2005, or 2012’s ‘Eat Your Holiday Heart Out‘.

Not that I didn’t sometimes have a softer spot for more sentimental fare, as evidenced by the cards that featured more family-oriented and sweeter fare, such as the 2010 ‘Wedding Card‘ from the year we got married, the easy-way-out redux of a childhood photo for 2013’s ‘Baby Brothers Ilagan‘, and the touching ‘Family Affair‘ recreation with Mom and Dad for 2020. Also of tender note was 2022’s tribute to my godson Jaxon which included a play on ‘The Godfather‘, as well as 2011’s ‘Uncle Al’s Radio Flyer‘ which featured the Ilagan twins, Emi and Noah.

Then there were the wild randos that still manage to surprise – the 2014 faux-cocaine pic entitled ‘Let It Snow‘, the ‘Bad Dumpster Santa‘ of 2007, and our most recent ‘Shitter’s Full‘ pic from last year – an homage to ‘Christmas Vacation’.

Before this year’s incendiary reveal, it seems right to point out some of the softer and more demure images to grace my friends’ mailboxes and mantles, such as the ‘Beautiful Christmas By the Sea‘ in 2008, or the following year’s ‘Angelic Ass‘, 2021’s cardigan-clad ‘Winter Slumber‘ or 2023’s gray-shaded ‘Father Time‘ treatise on the passing years.

All of those were mere appetizers for this year’s main platter, which is easily the hardest photo card I’ve ever shot, and it shows; I worked my proverbial ass off for this one, so come back and see tomorrow!