Merry Christmas, Fordham University!

'Tis the season to be busy---with finals, end-of-year reports, holiday shopping, and just about everything else. Luckily, the Fordham Holiday Passport is here once again to help bring cheer (and great holiday city adventure ideas) to Fordham students everywhere! (But mostly just at Fordham).

You may remember last year's holiday ram-deer motif. While I loved those cute little guys, I wanted this year's cover to feel a little more "classic" (not to mention a little more "collegiate")---like an old Currier & Ives Christmas card, or something out of It's a Wonderful Life. Hopefully Frank Capra and Jimmy Stewart---or at least Buddy the Elf---would be proud.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Ramdeer

Thanksgiving is practically almost about to be here, and that means the Fordham University Holiday Passport is on its way! For those of you not familiar with it, the passport serves as a handy, pocket-sized guide chockfull of everything you ever wanted to know about how to spend the holidays in NYC.

One of my favorite positions at Fordham has been designing the covers for the Holiday Passport. This year, I really wanted to play up the "Fordham" aspect of the publication--and that's how I came upon the cute and cuddly holiday ramdeer that you see above. You'll also notice that the passport now comes in TWO collectible editions--red and blue (just like the original Pokémon).

I went through a number of ideas before settling on this design. If you're interested in seeing some of the ramdeer that didn't make the final cut, just look below.

And finally, here's last year's cover design, for posterity's sake.

For those of you keeping up with ABC's "Countdown to the 25 Days of Christmas," happy countdown-to-the-countdown!