Simple Christmas idea #14 -- Create a family calendar

A gift of the year's highlights...

In the corner of one room in my parents' home is a wall covered with outdated calendars. Not your ordinary calendars, either. Each page sports pictures of my parents and their children and grandchildren engaged in different activities from years gone by. My sisters have done an amazing job of taking family photos and lovingly creating some gorgeous calendar gifts for Mom and Dad, and each time we visit, we have to check out the latest calendar page.

There are many ways to go about creating your own family calendar. Last week I saw a rather ugly freebie calendar at my drug store that could be vastly improved if some family photos were pasted on it. My computer seems to have a couple of calendar programs in its drives and there are downloadable programs on the internet. Places like Smilebox and Black's Photos have websites where you can upload pictures and get creative, though I've never tried those options. I just searched for internet calendars and found more options than I have time to sort through. As with Simple Christmas idea #12 (writing a family story), where there's a will, there's a way, and something personalized is a lot more meaningful than any generic, store-bought gift could ever be...

Now I need to get down to work and send some of this year's photos to my sisters for next year's calendar...