by Blake Jackson | @Blakestweet

It’s that time of year again. Time to clean off your mantlepiece of all the Christmas cards you received from family members you barely know or friends that think it is so funny to dress their dog up like Santa for the fifth year in a row. When you are done with that you can get rid of all the accompanying page long updates about how everyone is doing that are lying in a stack somewhere. Due to rise in popularity of social media some families thankfully have chosen to save the postage and make their Christmas cards available to those who want to see on social media. Here are some of the best ones the season.

Usually you get Christmas cards from aunts and uncles but, how cool would it be if you got a Christmas card from a celebrity? Well Diddy made that happen for all 9 million of his Twitter followers. He sent out a tweet showing a picture of him and his 6 kids dressed to the nines standing or sitting on a staircase wishing everyone happy holidays from the McCombs family.

Youtube is social media’s version of the page long update letter. Luckily, these families that you are about to see chose a popular song and reworded them to make it about their years. The Slade family appears to be early adopters of making YouTube Christmas cards starting back in 2011 with “I’ll have a blue Christmas” by Elvis Presley. The decided to make it a tradition in 2012 by singing “Happy Holidays”. Just like good wine, their videos get better with the years and this years card is the best one they have made to date.

The last half of the year I have watched more Miley Cirus “Wrecking Ball” parody videos than I care to admit. The Bock Family Christmas card is not any different. Their “card” was very fun to watch, including all different kinds of holidays songs that fit into the song. Finally, my favorite “card” of the year is played to the song “Welcome to Miami” by Will Smith. The Holderness family made their video and the rap was about what happened to them that year and titled it XMAS Jammies. As you watch the video you will begin to see why it is called that.

Hopefully some of these videos have inspired you to make a holiday card video of your own next year. Or the very least gave you a nice distraction while getting rid of Christmas cards and letter updates.