CW and I have scattered families. Not only are we scattered, but we aren’t very close (I wish that were different). Probably due to said scatteredness. Needless to say, when the holidays come around, I’m always at a loss at what to get everyone. Did I mention we have a crapload of relatives, too? Yeah, there’s that.
Well, after years of struggling with what is meaningful or what gift goes with what personality, I’ve finally just settled on thoughtful. I really don’t see anything wrong with that. In fact, I think it matters more, or that’s what I’m telling myself these days. The less stressed I am in finding a gift, the better I feel about giving, and if it’s at sweet gift that they will use, then we all win.
She loves her some Santa.
You see, five years ago we were blessed with Ava and from that event spawned thoughtful gifts. Family photos in frames, coffee mugs with her picture on them, picture books and calendars – all useful things that nobody wanted from us when it was just us and three cats. She has been a blessing in so many ways, and I fully appreciate her cuteness when it comes to the holidays.
But, I must add that creating these things aren’t as easy as it may seem. I take an inordinate amount of pictures of her. I have folders organized for each month of the year with hundreds of photos in each. This year, we gave calendars again and I usually insert 1-8 images per month. Picking the photos isn’t the hard part – it’s the organization of it all.
Before my iPhone, life was simpler. I had a nice DSLR and it always had upwards of 800 pictures on its card. I could take them off, sort them by date and place them in their nice, neat folders. With the iPhone, I take pics with Instagram, some other photo app thingy and the photo thingy that came with the phone. I’ve got pictures everywhere and a shit-ton of them. It took me four hours just to download all of these pictures and another hour to organize them. And then I got confused and put some 2010 images in the 2011 folders and all Hell broke loose…
Two days later, I had created some lovely calendars on Snapfish.com. I love how easy their site is to use and they seem to have more options than most other online photo sites. I’m not pimping their services as I’m not getting paid for this, I’m just saying that I’ve been using them for eight years or so and they pretty much rock.
So, if you are a family member and reading this – surprise, your getting calendars for Christmas! But rest assured I put a lot of thought and energy into making them, even if I didn’t leave my bed nor did I fight any traffic to get them.
Happy holidays!!
I love calendars for easy holiday gifts. I always wait to get them when there’s a great deal so it doesn’t even cost that much.
For real! Pictures are EVERYWHERE! I made some of those nice calendars and whatnot when my first son was a baby. I haven’t done that since his brother came along THREE YEARS AGO. I’m awful. I think thoughtful presents are awesome, though. I just have a hard time getting myself together!