Happy Christmas from Me

Many people wait until at least Halloween before they start thinking about Christmas, but not me. I love Christmas. Although I have to admit that I’m happy to take a break right after it’s over; by Mother’s Day I’m ready to hang my stockings by the chimney with care once again. It’s about then that I begin scouring the Web for new Christmas images to add to my already huge collection. That always helps when I start creating my handmade Christmas cards in the fall. Because of that 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 letters for the kids in my family. These can’t be mailed until the beginning of December because they’re sent to the post office at the North Pole to be stamped with a special postmark. After that, they’re mailed to each child in stamped envelopes I provide. The process takes less than 2 weeks, so I don’t want to mail them too early. Kids get hyped up enough about Christmas; they don’t need letters from Santa Claus before Thanksgiving! But it is gratifying to watch them tear open those letters from Santa. Because I make them myself, I can insert personal details to make them think Santa really knows them. If they have toys on their Christmas lists, “Santa” names them and tells them that they can have them as long as they’re good. If there’s a lot of figthing between brothers and sisters around the time the letters are sent, I also say they must get along with everyone in the house if they want their Christmas presents. Nothing like a little pressure from Santa to get kids to behave!

And I still can’t rest even after I get my Christmas cards and letters from Santa mailed. I always make handmade New Year cards for select friends and family members, along with a custom e-mail New Years greeting for the rest. When I make those, I pick from my collection of vintage new years clip art images. I make the handmade versions pretty elaborate, 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 experiment with making your own handmade Christmas or New Year cards, here are some tips:

• Use pre-cut, pre-folded cards from the stationary store, or on the heaviest regular card stock your printer will allow.
• If your printer will take photo paper, you can print the images on different stock from the cards, and trim them down and then paste them to the front of the cards.
• There are lovely metallic and specialty papers that can be cut slightly larger than the image size and used to frame the artwork. You can find these at discount stores such as Walmart, or at stores that specialize in craft supplies.
• Glitter glue that comes in “pens” work wonders for adding a little sparkle. Just don’t use too much! The cards may warp and also have a tendency to look overdone.