Last year is officially in the rearview mirror, but before we say goodbye, we wanted to share one of our favorite annual traditions: making a family yearbook. It’s become a ritual we look forward to each January, a way to gather the previous year’s best moments into a single, tangible keepsake.
This year we were delighted to add the 2012 Petersik Family Yearbook to our growing shelf of annual photo books. We began ordering photobooks in 2010 and have stuck with the same vendor to keep the series consistent in look and quality. Over time those annual volumes have become a compact, beautiful archive of our family’s life—much easier to store and enjoy than a stack of loose prints or bulky albums.
I tend to be strategic when ordering: I build the book to the maximum page allowance—100 pages—so I can include as many images and moments as possible. Many services charge per page after a certain threshold, so ordering full books can get pricey. I watch for promotional offers and wait for a “free extra pages” deal from the printer, which can save a lot. This year, patience paid off and I snagged a solid discount that made the project much more affordable.
We open each yearbook with a highlights page that summarizes the year in a few quick bullet points. It’s a nice snapshot that sets the tone before the photo pages unfold chronologically. Instead of merely retyping those bullets here, we thought we’d describe some of the pages that correspond to the highlights—little moments that, when combined, tell the larger story of our year.
Among the highlights were completing the kitchen renovation, visiting Granny and remodeling her bathroom, celebrating Sherry’s 30th birthday, dressing up Jesse and the dog in matching Halloween costumes, and hosting Christmas dinner at our home. Each of those events has a few pages dedicated to it, with candid shots, close-ups, and a couple of full-bleed images that really capture the mood.
One new addition this year was a short Instagram section at the back of the book. Since 2012 was the year social photos really started becoming part of our daily rhythm, it felt fitting to include several small candid squares that document everyday moments—coffee dates, playground visits, quick snaps of projects in progress. They add a casual, intimate layer to the more formal family portraits and staged shots.
Waiting a full year to make the next book feels long, but the anticipation is part of the fun. In the meantime we’ll keep taking photos—lots of them—so the next volume will be full when January comes around again. The yearbook format encourages us to shoot intentionally and to curate a thoughtful selection instead of letting thousands of files languish on a hard drive.
These books are more practical than traditional photo albums. Printed photos require albums with thick pages and bulky bindings, which quickly consume shelf space. By contrast, custom yearbooks are compact with durable pages and tidy spines, so after a decade we expect to have a neat stack of volumes that are easy to store and to display on a shelf. They take up far less room than the equivalent number of printed albums.
There’s also a clear cost advantage. A 100-page book can hold hundreds of photos laid out and printed as part of a single custom product. If you add up the cost of printing hundreds of individual photos at retail stores and then buying multiple albums to store them, the price for prints and albums often exceeds the cost of a professionally bound yearbook. Beyond price, the book format saves time and gives your photos a cohesive presentation that’s enjoyable to flip through.
If you’re thinking of starting your own yearbook tradition, try dedicating a weekend to curating images, choosing layouts, and writing a few captions. Even a simple highlights page at the front can give the book context and make it feel more polished. However you document your year, the important part is capturing the little and big moments that matter—so you’ll have a physical record to revisit for years to come.