The majority of people wait until at least October to begin thinking about Christmas, but not yours truly. That’s because I love Christmas. Though I do admit I’m quite happy to take a break right after the holiday is over; by May I’m ready to give it another go. It’s about that time that I begin scouring the Internet to see if I can find any new Christmas tree clip art to expand my already large collection. That puts me ahead of the game when I start creating handmade holiday cards in the autumn. That way I don’t have to search for images when I’m ready to begin; I can just start creating the cards. Since that’s a lot of work in itself, I’m glad to have the images already on my hard drive.

One aspect I do leave until right before Christmas, though, is the creation of free Santa letterhead for the kids in my family. These can’t be mailed until the beginning of December because they actually have to be sent to a post office located at the North Pole for a postmark. They’re then mailed to the kids in stamped, addressed envelopes I provide. That process only takes 10 days to a few weeks, so I don’t want to mail them too early. Children get excited enough about Christmas without any help; they don’t need letters from Santa before Thanksgiving! But it is gratifying to see how much they enjoy getting custom letters from Santa. Because I make them myself, I can insert personal details to promote the illusion that the letters really come from him. If they have toys they’ve been wanting, “Santa” lets them think that they’ll only get them if they behave well. If they’ve been fighting with their siblings at the time the letters are mailed, I also include that they have to get along with everyone in the family if they want their Christmas presents. Nothing like some good, old fashioned pressure from Santa to get kids to mind!

Once my handmade holiday cards and Santa letters are in the mail, I still can’t rest. I always make handmade New Year cards for select friends and family members, as well as an electronic greeting for everyone else. When I make those, I pick from my collection of New Year cards. I get quite elaborate with the handmade versions, since I don’t have to make that many. They’re a lot of fun to make and I love creating them.

If you’d like to make your own holiday cards, here are some tips:

• Use pre-cut, pre-folded cards from the stationary store, or on the thickest card stock that will go through your printer.
• If your printer will take photo paper, you can print the images separately from the cards, and cut them out and paste them onto the card fronts.
• There are lovely metallic and specialty papers that you can use to frame the images by cutting pieces slightly larger than the artwork. These can be found at discount stores such as Walmart, or at craft stores.
• Glitter glue pens are great for adding shine to images. But don’t get carried away with it! If you do, the cards will not only look cheesy, they will also warp.

Tags: Christmas cards, Christmas clip art, Christmas images, letters from Santa, New Year cards, New Years cards, Santa letters

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 10th, 2009 at 7:41 pm and is filed under Womens Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.