Family Calendars

Looking for ideas for Christmas gifts? How about a family calendar.

My friend Kathy has been doing this for several years. I believe she uses an office supply store or local print shop to print her calendar. But there are various places around town and online where you can do this. Just find your pictures, save to a file or on your phone, and you're set!

She said she usually tries to come up with a theme for her calendar. I tried to come up with some of my own. Here are some themes I came up with:

• Family celebrations/trips
• Family pictures from long ago (use any old family pictures you might have of ancestors)
• Holidays throughout the year
• Family birthdays
• Anniversaries and other special events (i.e. weddings, graduations)
• Just random current photos (kid's school pictures, etc.)

Family celebrations/trips~

A fun family ski trip from a few years ago.

Family photos from long ago~

I think my second category or theme for a calendar would be great. I've been writing a lot about recording those old family stories--how about doing it in a calendar? Simply find those old pictures, scan or take a picture with your phone and put each one on a calendar page with a brief history or description. That way your family members could get snapshots of family history in small doses. 

An old photo of my mother and her sister. I think it would make a great calendar page.

I'm guessing I could call this calendar, the Family History Calendar. I love this old photo of my husband's great grandmother. I could include a brief history of the people on each calendar page.

Holidays~

Just use what photos you have of family get-togethers of various holidays throughout the year, or find an old photo that you can use for the holiday. My daughter-in-law used to give us a calendar of our grandkids. It was a pre-made calendar that had a motif that matched each month's holiday.All you had to do was slide your photo into the frame. Here is the one for Halloween:

I created my own for March. An often overlooked holiday--St. Patrick's Day!

Birthdays~

This is probably the best theme of all. It helps everyone keep up with family birthdays.

My mother's birthday would lead things off in a birthday calendar. She's the only one in our family who has a January birthday.

A favorite picture from my husband's birthday.

Anniversaries, weddings, and other special events~

This is a fun category/theme as well. In the life of a family, there's usually some special happening occurring in any given month or has occurred during that month--go for it!

I would definitely call this a special event.

Probably the best theme of all is just random pictures--favorite pictures that you have on hand and that simply bring a smile to your face. You can bet they will bring a smile to family members as well.

Kathy says she neglected to do a calendar one year. She kind of thought that her family wasn't all enthusiastic about such things. But you can guess--that year everyone wanted to know where their calendar was.

I left out a theme that Kathy told me about. Sometimes she just does the calendar based on ONE GENERATION. It might just include pictures of her own children. Another year it might have pictures of just the grandkids on each page. There are many ways to do this. 

I tried to give you enough time to get this done for Christmas gifts. We're still in November--you can do this. And if you've done it before, please share. I love hearing others' ideas. 

I sometimes like to use a familiar quote to close out my blog post. This one is from my grandmother. She loved soap operas, and if you were ever at her house on a weekday afternoon, this is what you heard:

Like sands through the hourglass--these are the
​DAYS OF OUR LIVES.