Beautiful cards!!!! I especially love the ones with snowy trees. So talented!!
To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer." Mahatma Gandhi
Be nice whenever possible. It's always possible. HH Dalai Lama
In a world where you can be anything - be kind. Unknown
I usually make my cards (stamping, paper crafts), but have some premade ones that i will use up this year. It's time-consuming and they've never been as nice as Simplemind's!
"Do not accumulate for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal. But accumulate for yourselves treasure in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, your heart is also." Jesus
i make gift tags and cards for some friends and family as a way to reduce my craft stash. (Gift wrapping too.) For others, I'm still using up what we'd bought before. We're also using up postage we've already got, so the out of pocket is $0.
I think I have just been inspired to mail Christmas cards this year. I have a stash of pretty cards, and a stash of postage stamps. I should surprise everyone and use them!
[I have used exactly 1 postage stamp thus far this year. It will annoy me to no end if they become totally obsolete while I still have a mess of them!]
Yes, I agree that Simplemind's cards are beautiful!
Every year I say I'm going to write cards, and every year I don't. This year, I have a shot at it, because my excuse for prior years was all the falderal we go through with other Christmas stuff--decorations, cleaning for the kids coming, crazy last-minute shopping, and not to mention, December is my busiest work month with people trying to spend their budgets on market research before the new fiscal year.
This year, it seems I won't have decorations, won't have cleaning for the kids, and will have far less shopping because as a family, we've managed to agree on downsizing our Christmas expectations. And we will be in a small, small rental and my kids will be scattered this year. I just found out that my NJ DIL wants to do something very non-traditional and travel somewhere with the kids for Christmas--and DH and I are not invited. So, here we assumed that we'd spend Thanksgiving in VT with our 3 kids/grandkids and Christmas in NJ with our 1 son and grandkids, and now it looks like we'll be stranded in a furnished rental with no kids for the first time in 41 years.
Frankly, I had to fight back tears when my son told me that. I know it's his life and he has his own family, and I have no right to assume anything, but I think it's the idea of one more death of a long-standing tradition, following the end of many things this year. Not only is this the first year I won't be decorating with ornaments I've collected over the years; not only will we not have our Christmas morning present-orgy, not only will we not wait expectantly for all the kids to come through the door on Christmas Eve, but now I won't even have my kids. Or my house.
Didn't mean to make this a vent or a downer... Point is, hey, maybe I'll have time to write 450 cards, like IL!
"Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it--every, every minute?" Emily Webb, Our Town
www.silententry.wordpress.com
Catherine, our Xmas’s have varied in the last few years due to my kids moving out of town, working holidays, etc. I handled it one of 2 ways. We either invited a bunch of friends for dinner or made reservations for a dinner show. Then we had something to look forward to.
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