If you are trying to get organised for Christmas, check out my 10 Week Christmas Plan. This post sees us with only 6 weeks left until Christmas!
Since the children have been at school, they have given out Christmas Cards to their class mates at the end of the year. Last year my 9 year old at the time did grumble some what about having to give out Christmas Cards, at the time I said that he should do it this year and we can talk about whether he needs to do it for next year at another point.
Well “another point” raised its head this week, when we started on the process of making the children’s Christmas Cards. I had given this issue some thought and was prepared to take his lead on this issue – I wouldn’t make him do Christmas Cards if he didn’t want to. So as he told me in a very determined way that he believed he was too old to have to do this and none of his friends gave out Christmas Cards, I think I surprised him when I said “no worries then, you don’t have to make a card if you don’t want to.”!
This was not the end of the matter though, as my year 2 son then complained as to why did he have to do them if his brother didn’t? Before I could answer the 10 year old chimed in very quickly to point out that “I sent out Christmas Cards until year 4, so you should have to.” I thought my year 2 boy would no take this at all, but he seemed to just cop it on the chin and set out about drawing a design for his card. He did however say that he didn’t want to put his card on the blog and I am cognisant of the fact that it is his right not to have his work published, so you will only see my daughters card, who was happy with her drawing being on the blog. This year’s Christmas Card process was full of more issues than I had ever imagined!
This year as we have a new printer with a scanner function, we are simply scanning the drawings and then printing them on to card. If you don’t have a scanner, check out my last year’s post on Children’s Handmade Christmas Cards for other options were we used the Paint application on their PC and for Mac users like myself you can download Tux Paint to use instead.
Here is the word document template that I inserted the picture into: Children’s Christmas Card Template. I adjusted the size so that we could print out smaller cards (four per A4 size of cardboard).
So tell me, do your children give out Christmas Cards to their friends?
The family Christmas Card has been much easier than the kids cards, with big thanks to the lovely Kate for making it that way. Kate also designed our last year’s card which was incredibly gorgeous. In the last month I have visited two homes and have seen our last year’s Christmas Card still on show! (And they weren’t actually family’s houses either!) I will just have to find time to write on all of them when they come back from the printers. 
What sort of Christmas cards do you do?
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Hiya
I hope you don’t take offence at this but it has never entered my head that I would ever get my kids to do Christmas cards unless they initiated it!!! What led to this tradition for you? I send about 20 odd cards each year, and get about the same amount – I only send cards to people overseas or who I won’t be catching up with close to Christmas. I start writing them early so that I can put a reasonable message in them. My Mum only sends about 3 Christmas cards – I suppose its just never been a big thing in our house. I am working on keeping Christmas very simple this year and focussing on what I enjoy, I have been really really inspired by Small Notebook’s Christmas last year and I am determined to keep that spirit in mind!http://smallnotebook.org/2008/12/01/christmas-without-frenzy/
Interesting post Nicole but I tend to agree with Gypsy. The thought “what on earth were you thinking creating this mammoth task for yourself”! did enter my head!!
That being said I only send cards to older relatives and my parents (all overseas).
Why? Well mainly the environment. I hate to see all these cards being read for about 2 sec then put on some mantlepiece to collect dust before being checked in the bin! Then bringing kids cards into the whole mix …well think of all that landfill!
My suggestion for the kids – if they want to do it with close friends – is a nice small homemade gingerbread man wrapped nicely in some tissue paper and tied with a bow. Much kinder to environment and I think the kids would much prefer it! (Only issue is now to find the time to make the Gingerbreads!).
Loved the feedback ladies. It is interesting for me to reflect on how I came to a point where I was having the kids make their own Christmas Cards. It actually stemmed from when I only had two kids and my first son went to a small Montessori preschool. Everyone handed them out, so I dutifully made my son too. I guess it just became habit and last year we did it for 3 kids, plus a family card!!! As we are under way this year we will keep going, but next year I will wait and see if the kids actually want to do this, instead of me prompting them. Will be interested to see what happens and once again thanks for giving me a little clarity on this issue.
It’s interesting to hear the “discussions” you and your children have had on this!
My kids don’t give out their own cards, but last year, taking a page from your book, I decided to try having them design our family cards to send out (rather than buy the boxed ones). Two of them complied, but the third (the oldest, no less) had a major meltdown and would NOT allow hers to be used on our card (it wasn’t *perfect*) so I scrapped that idea and designed one myself using their photos and quotations. (I posted it on my blog last December or January – I think it’s called something about “naked & exposed”, as that’s how I showed it to my mom, half a world away, so I had to TELL MY MOM I had a blog!)
Given a little more time for them (her) to get used to the idea now, I may try again as they create such great pictures when you let them loose!
Its funny how we can get engage in ‘traditions’ and each year just keep doing it without thinking about whether it fits the age of the kids anymore or indeed our own lives and time. One ‘tradition’ which I do hope my kids continue to enjoy is each year on Xmas Night we put them sitting in front of Xmas tree….roll the video camera and ask to reflect (via prompts of course) about the year thats gone. Things like …their friends who they are and why they like them; their favourite food and why. What they like doing best with the family, favourite day of week and why? Of course expect “prompts” to change as kids get older but for now the kids love it.Started doing it when my daughter was two and four years later looking forward to doing it this year! Hoping that when my children are adults their will be a nice collection of short videos “capturing” moments in their lives that we give them.