A gift idea

An number of years ago, my family (mother, brother, sister, aunts, etc.) decided we all had about as many knicknacks, tea towels, and other junk as we needed to dust and made the vow that we would give our gift dollars to a charity in each others' names instead. It's been a good plan, although there has been some back sliding. (Thanks for the oranges, Sis.)

For the past three years I've been making "The Johnson Family Calendar" for each member of our relatively (pun intended) small group. Old scanned photos of long-gone relatives and baby pictures of my siblings and I are mixed with digital photos from family events from the past year. The calendar is not very artistic, but it is meaningful to those who receive it. Takes about a day, selecting, resizing and pasting photos into a calendar template from AppleWorks. I create PDFs of each month, take them to the local Kinkos for printing and binding - badda bing, badda boom.

OK, it's not so original, but it takes me back to the days when Mom gushed over some nice handcrafted ashtray I'd made in school. 

Give it a try sometime and let me know there is a good calendar creation tool that runs on Mac OSX! 

A. Merry Christmas
B. Happy Hannukah
C. Joyous Kwanza
D. Happy Eid
E. Blessed Solstice
F. Happy Holiday
G. Season's Greetings
H. Other
Choose one (or two) of the above and know that I send it in a most heartfelt way to the readers of the Blue Skunk.  - Doug

Comments

[Jerrie in Georgia]

Doug,

I love reading your blog...You are right on the mark!!!

Thanks for being one of my greatest featured speakers at the GaETC in 2004...We loved you!!!!

Just wanted you to know that I am still keeping up with you through your blog! And also through all the conferences where you present!

Regards,
Jerrie
GaETC Program Chair

[Frances Jacobson Harris]

And happy This Time of the Year to you, Doug! Hope you take some time off yourself.

Your loyal reader, Francey (soon to leave for KlezKamp 2005: http://www.livingtraditions.org/docs/index_kk.htm)

[Jim Dornberg]

I took the easy way out and used the Kodak Gallery online. They have a large variety of colored calendar backgrounds, and each month can have up to 4 photos. You can also put a photo on the cover. It costs $19.99 plus S+H, but you may be able to find a discount code. We got ours in less than a week and it is BEAUTIFUL! It's awfully close to the Christmas deadline though!