Why You Should Go Human, Not AI, for a Digital Holiday Card

The holidays are in full swing, the winter solstice is over, and it's way past time to mail out your Hallmark-esque holiday cards -- the ones that come with a sweet family photo and a "Happy Holidays" banner. A little cheesy? Maybe. But we all secretly love it. 

While you probably don't have the time to do a whole holiday photo shoot, there are ways you can create digital cards that you can send online to your loved ones. I gave artificial intelligence a shot at the job. 

AI can create a custom card for you in minutes -- just like you can do with wedding invites or a dinner party menu -- so I tried using Midjourney to capture the holiday magic.

The tool was introduced in 2022, and the membership prices range from $10 to $120 a month. If you subscribe to the yearly membership, you get 20% off these rates. Midjourney no longer offers a free version. 

I'll take you through everything that went wrong, and why you may just want to snap a quick (real) pic, upload it to an online card maker, and send that out -- and avoid AI altogether.

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Merry Midjourney 

Before jumping into Midjourney, I had a few family photos ready to go that I liked. Some photo cards are a compilation of images from the year, while others are just a single shot. 

It's worth going through family holiday cards for design inspiration to get a feel for the styles and keywords of your prompt. For example, words like retro, traditional, themed or minimal work well.

I opted for a single image, just because I have so many photos from the year that it's hard to narrow down my top few. 

Once I had my photo, I chose a Midjourney membership. The basic plan is fine, and it set me back $10. As with all AI tools, it helps to be as specific as possible with prompts. Give it as much context upfront. If you're planning to print and send it like a postcard, specify that. 

To upload a photo with your prompt, type/imagine, then drag your photo into the prompt box. Click on the icon in the "what will you imagine?" box to use that image. 

Here was my prompt: 

"Use this image to create a Christmas card printable postcard with a happy holidays message." 

It missed the mark entirely, fabricating a snowy setting in Big Sur, California.

For prompt two, I asked Midjourney to place the photo (unchanged) on a festive card… and it got worse. I like cats and all, but I love my wife more. 

Next, I tried a different approach. I asked Midjourney to generate holiday card templates. I found a simple template I liked, then asked Midjourney to add my photo onto it. Again, super weird. 

I tried various workarounds, such as asking Midjourney to create a holiday card so I could add a photo to it, but it just kept generating fake families. 

Midjourney turned cheesy into cringe. 

I was on the website version of Midjourney, so to give it one more go, I tried the Discord route but didn't have much luck either. I couldn't get my photo into the prompt, even though I'd given Discord full access to my photo library. So I opened the Discord desktop and was able to link my photo. It didn't help at all. 

I had a quick look on Reddit and it seems I'm not alone. Midjourney is known to change the faces of images you upload. One comment said to rerun until you get an image you like, then use Photoshop to swap faces. 

Someone replied saying they had to rerun 50 times to get a good one. 

That's a holiday mood crusher, and definitely not a time saver.

For the sake of this experiment (and because I was now set on sending a holiday card), I went to VistaPrint to see how fast I could create a card. I'd received a couple in the mail from friends who were adorable. 

With VistaPrint, I made this in under a minute. It's just missing my note. 

The verdict on AI for holiday cards

Midjourney produced a few cute images, but I couldn't get it to create a design that incorporated my photo directly; instead, it altered the image or used it as "inspiration."

It kept adding Christmas elements to my original photo, like switching out my wife with a reindeer. 

Midjourney might have merit in creating cartoons, DIY advent calendars or generic printable cards to hole-punch and string onto presents. As I found when I tried to create a personalized cartoon for my nephews, AI has a hard time nailing personal features and consistency. 

It still feels very cartoony and very obviously AI. 

I'd much rather send a handwritten note to a few of my favorites than rely on a robot to deliver Christmas wishes.