Holiday Hallmark : It’s hunting season for cards with custom or preprinted greetings.

There’s no getting around it: The holiday season envelops us earlier and earlier with each passing year. In stores, Halloween appears in late summer, Thanksgiving arrives in October, and Christmas, depending on the retailer, can pop up anywhere between August and November.

This year, in particular, with the excitement building over the turn of the millennium, holiday festivities already are all but upon us.

And you, for one, haven’t even thought about your Christmas, Hanukkah or Kwanzaa cards yet.

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OK, it may be too early to be running to the post office with holiday greeting cards tucked under your arm, but it’s not too early to start planning for them. The more you have to send and the more personalized you want them to be, the longer they take to prepare.

There’s nothing at all wrong with store-bought cards. But for those who want to add a little extra touch--and perhaps earn a prized spot above someone’s fireplace--there are several options.

Personalized cards, with or without family photographs incorporated into them, can be created and ordered at a variety of stationery, photography, general retail and specialty stores. We checked in with a sampling to see what options are available.

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Lautzenhiser’s Stationery in Oxnard and its sibling, Lautzenhiser’s Hallmark in Ventura, can add personalized messages to greeting cards using their calligraphy machine or ink jet printer. The stores also personalize photo greeting cards.

Husband and wife Rick and Nancy Mazer own the two shops, with Rick operating the Oxnard store and Nancy overseeing the Ventura location. The card selection is larger in Ventura, but both stores serve the card-buying customer.

Holiday shoppers can customize off-the-shelf boxed sets of cards or scan store catalogs for bulk prices on larger orders. The catalogs offer a greater variety than stocked in the stores.

Boxed cards purchased off the shelf can be personalized in regular print, for a $5 setup fee and 20 cents per card. The store has multiple options of type size and ink and will try to make a close match to the card.

For calligraphy, there is also a $5 setup fee, plus 50 cents to 75 cents per card. The Lautzenhiser stores will address envelopes, as well, for a $10 setup fee and 40 cents a line for the printed version or 50 cents a line for the calligraphy style.

Photo cards range from about $1 to $10 each, Nancy Mazer said, depending on the complexity of the order.

“Sometimes we have customers who start with the card and then buy clothing and take a photo to match the card--some of the cards are so elaborate and special that the card triggers the photo,” she said. “Other times customers have a favorite photo and then find the card for it.”

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At Costco in Oxnard, the 1 Hour Photo lab will process 35 mm film or an Advanced Photo System cartridge and incorporate the finished product into a greeting card. The store offers a selection of 21 cards, horizontal or vertical depending on the photo.

The cost is $17.99 for a box of 50 cards with envelopes, and $5.99 for each additional set of 25 cards. Personalized messages are $4.99 per order, regardless of the number of cards. The maximum text is two lines per card, at 20 characters per line.

Personalized photo greeting cards also are available at Kinko’s copy shops throughout the county. The chain offers 18 styles of horizontal or vertical cards. Customers can bring in a color picture, with orders generally filled by the next day.

The cost at Kinko’s is $29.90 for a box of 10 cards, which includes envelopes and a personalized message of up to six lines. Larger orders are less per card: 20 cards cost $2.49 each; 40 cards run $1.99 each; and 60 cards are $1.49 each.

Photo cards can be ordered at photo shops all over. At Thousand Oaks 1 Hour Photo in Newbury Park, 25 photo cards with envelopes cost about $25. The store offers a selection of 20 styles of cards.

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Now aren’t you ready to start planning your holidays?