We began our Christmas in July celebration yesterday.  Shall we continue?

You've made your gift list, but most of us have a MUCH longer Christmas card list.  If you haven't made that yet and updated addresses, I'd do that now!  It seems like one of the most time-consuming tasks we have at Christmas is addressing card after card after card.

Some people have gotten smart and make a database on their computer from which they then print out labels.  There are those of us fuddy-duddys, though, who still address our cards the old-fashioned way...by hand.  Lest someone think I'm calling someone names, I'M the old fuddy-duddy!  Still, I don't want to do this all in one month, and neither do the kids.

Again, we purchase our Christmas cards on clearance the year before.  If we want to include a picture, we have one taken in the summer & include them in the cards when they come in.  If you prefer one of the speciality picture-cards, you can have those done in the summer too.  (No one has to know WHEN that family "Christmas" picture was taken!)

This month, I'll update my card list and the addresses, get my cards together, buy my stamps, and have any pictures taken that we'll want to include.

Next month, we'll start addressing cards every week.  The kids and I will take 15 minutes once a week and address cards.  With 3 of us who write well addressing this goes pretty quickly.  I save the grandparent's cards for my son since they typically enjoy his "messy, still-learning-to-write neatly" handwriting.

We'll also add any personal notes and sign the cards at this time.  If we have a picture to add, we'll add it now & then seal the card shut.  We finish the card by adding the stamp & putting into our completed box.

This is an absolutely painless way to get your Christmas cards done.  Just imagine how good you'll feel when December comes and you pull out all of your ready-to-mail cards!  This leaves time for more of the fun things at Christmas like baking!  (A personal favorite of mine!)