Crystal Ornaments and Gifts for All Seasons!

Not that long ago, the phrase “Christmas cards” meant only one thing – a holiday image on the outside of a folded card with touching text inside. But gone are the times when your only options were paper cards folded in half with a holiday image on the front or a flat postcard with a family photo. Now you can find cool Christmas cards that pop up, play music, fold out, can be used as Christmas tree ornaments or Christmas letters, and offer more personalization options than ever before. And that’s just the paper Christmas cards. Customized digital Christmas cards offer even more options, and if you really want something different , you can even send an edible holiday card .

This Christmas, check out some of these options and have fun with your mail. Here are some ideas for unusual Christmas cards.

Calendar Christmas Cards – If you don’t want your greeting to get thrown out after the holidays, make it useful. At Studio Style, you can personalize one of these fold-out cards with your own photo. After Christmas is over, your recipient can hang it up and enjoy the photo and the calendar all year long.

Christmas Tree Ornament Cards – Another way to give your card a second life is to select a card designed to hang on a Christmas tree. Don’t worry – they’re not just rectangular cards with a hole in them! You can find some cool round ornament cards at PhotoWorks.

Musical Christmas Cards – Greetings that play music are readily available at many local stores . Like the now-popular musical birthday cards, these cards look traditional until you open them up. Then they’ll play a Christmas tune such as “Deck the Halls” or “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

Christmas Letter Cards – Who wants to spend time printing out family holiday letters and stuffing them in cards? Turn your card INTO your Christmas letter! PhotoWorks offers several oversized or fold-out greetings that have a large area for writing. You create the text online and they’ll arrive with your Christmas letter already printed inside.

Digital Christmas Cards – Sites like Smilebox.com make it easy for anyone to create fun digital Christmas cards. They offer hundreds of designs for all occasions, and you add your own photos and text and select the music. The result is a fun digital greeting that your recipient can open and view on their computer. For a small fee, you can even save these creations to DVD.

Edible Christmas Cards – You won’t be able to send these unusual greeting cardsto everyone on your mailinglist unless you’re independently wealthy, but if you know someone who loves Rice Krispie treats or chocolate, you can send them giant greeting cards made of with their favorite treat. Check Gourmet Cookie Bouquets.com for the krispy card and Savannah’s Candy Kitchen for the chocolate greeting.

Any one of these unusual Christmas cards are sure to make your holiday greeting stand out from the crowd. The only problem may be coming up with something MORE unusual next year.

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Kids love getting Santa letters during the holidays , and it’s fun for parents and grandparents to watch the joy on a child’s face when he or she gets a personalized letter from the jolly old elf. And now it’s even easier than ever to create personalized, printable kids Santa letters . These two sites can help you create your own kids Santa letters in just minutes online. It’s faster and cheaper than ordering from a company that does all the work, and you’ll have fun doing it. All you need is a printer, some paper and a few minutes. Have fun!

PrintableSantaLetters.com offers a lot of letter options, including six backgrounds and eight different letter formats. In addition, you can choose from several packages, from a simple letter and envelope combo to a package that includes a letter from Santa and a letter from Rudolph,an autographed photo of Santa Claus , a personalized Nice List certificate and two different sized envelope designs. Prices range from just $3.99 to $8.99. You’ll need Adobe Reader (get it free from Adobe) to open and print your personalized pdf files.

Christmas Letter Tips.com offers both Christmas letter templates and printable Santa letter templates in MS Word format . Like other sites offering Word templates, this one allows you to buy a single document you can personalize and use again and again, as long as you’re using it for personal use. They offer two Christmas designs from which to choose.

For more options, you can also find printable letters from Santa Claus at Santa Letter Templates.com, Free Santa Letters.net, My Kids Santa Letters.com and others. Or if you decide to buy a full-serve letter, sites such as Package from Santa.com and Santas Official North Pole Mail.com are reputable companies that have provided thousands of letters for happy customers.

Santa always answers all his mail, and there are plenty of elves to help make sure it gets done right!

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Many of us have had this dilemma, you’ve got two children that are siblings, and you have to give them each a gift. This can be a problem if one child perceives that the other got more of a present then they did. In fact, in the world of sibling rivalries, this could spark a tantrum of epic proportions. Getting the same gift is always an option, but sometimes we’d prefer to get an “equal but different” gift that’s more to each child’s taste. This doesn’t have to be as hard as you may think. No matter who you are, mom, aunt, or just friend of the family, you can following the 4 “S’s” of sibling gift giving.

Size

Luckily for us, most younger children don’t really understand the value of money, and so they won’t realize that you’ve spent more on one gift than the other. But they will notice if one gift is physically smaller than the one that their sibling received. That’s way its critical to get toys that are the same size. For example, buy a toy car as big as the Barbie doll you got, or you could spark some sibling resentment. And well it may seem “cute” to give a big doll to an older sister, and a small doll to the younger sister, don’t do it! Someone’s likely to be very unhappy in the end. Choose gifts that are the same size.

Sharing

This mean seem like a great idea, because it allows you to spend more by just getting one gift for both children, and then you can get them a bigger and better gift. And it can be a good idea to get a big gift like a bike, but only if you know these kids understand the value of sharing, or if you’ve got a specific plan worked out when each child can play with their new toy. Still, this is an iffy proposition. You’re better off getting two different presents of the same value in order to completely avoid any sibling strife. It’s much safer to get them each their own gift!

Sugar

Kids adore sweets like chocolate and candy, and so this easy-to-get gift is almost a sure bet to make the kids happy. Giving each child their own sweet-treat gift basket is a great way to make them happy, and you can always personalize the basket to each child’s taste. Include their favorite candy and cookies so that the gifts are not exactly the same. However there are a couple of rules you have to follow before giving this present. Make sure that the parents approve. Some parents frown on sugar, either because of general unhealthiness or the hyperactivity that it can often cause. In fact, it’s best that when you give the gift, you put it in the hands of mom and dad so that they can dole out the candy as they see fit, and we avoid the sugar rush.

Same Gifts

If you still decide to go the same gift route, here are some ideas for gifts that have been past hits. Apparel is one of the most popular presents. You could get the siblings the t-shirt or sport’s hat. Parents appreciate this gift because their children are no doubt constantly growing out of clothing, and that’s not cheap! You could even print things on the t-shirt, like “big brother” on one and “little sister” on the other. Stuffed animals are another great idea. Get them the same teddy bear, plush dog, stuffed cat, or any other stuffed animal you think is appropriate. You could even change some minor details, like get a black dog or a cream dog. Or have a ribbon around each teddy bear’s neck in each child’s favorite color. There are nearly endless possibilities.

So there you have it! “S” is for siblings, and the 4 S’s can teach you the most important things you need to keep in mind when choosing gifts for them. Remember, gift-giving doesn’t have to be an agonizing chore as long as you keep these tips and hints in mind!

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Big shopping days are the Friday after Thanksgiving, the day after Christmas, and New Years Day.

New Years Day is the day that women get even with their husbands for watching a zillion football games. They spend and spend and spend.

The problem with all of these days and all the days between Thanksgiving and Christmas is that there are a zillion customers in the stores. To get there they cram the streets with their cars. The clerks are working themselves to death. When they get home at night they say, "Oh, my feet! My feet!"

The best day to do Christmas shopping is the day that the stores are full of new Christmas merchandise that has not been picked over.

There is a plethora of clerks a smiling.

The clerks joke with you, help you find the right set of earrings for each of your twenty-three granddaughters, binoculars for your nine grandsons, a stuffed lion for your great granddaughter, books for your kids and their spouses, and then the clerks say, "Have a nice Thanksgiving! Can we help you to the car?"

Now you have guessed the day, haven't you?

How many said, "Christmas Eve just before the stores close when the stores panic if they have too much leftover merchandise. They cut their prices and you buy, buy, buy!

If you are not poor, you are wrong. Now days, the stores have to cut their prices much earlier to compete with Target® and Wal-mart®.

The best day to shop is the day before Thanksgiving.

Stay-at-home moms are all baking pies.

Working moms are heading straight for the grocery store at noon and after work.

Nobody goes shopping that day but my wife and I and a few little old ladies who have "caught on."

We went shopping this morning and were home by 3:30 p.m. That was after I had the salmon at the Sizzler® and my wife her usual salad bar. I had a salad bar too.

When we got to the Sizzler®, I was starved from shopping for our five children, their spouses, our 32 grandchildren, including two new spouses, and our great grandchild that still says, "Goo, Goo!" (Our triplets still say, "Goo, Goo!" too.)

I started with a bowl of clam chowder, then salad, then the salmon, then the ice cream. Yum! Yum!

Back in our home town exhausted by the metropolis of Twin Falls with its thousands of people, I laid down on the bed to get the kink out of my back that I always get when shopping.

When I woke up, I had missed Jeopardy®.

That's when I decided that I had to get the presents under-wrapped (that is in the wrapping under the pretty stuff. I made up the word. Go ahead and use it).

I needed to write the name of the child, grandchild, or great grandchild on the inner wrapping or my wife might send a wrong present to a wrong person in a wrong state!

She didn't want to, but she gave me a hand.

Now I'm sure that we will be sending a wrong present to a wrong person in a wrong state.

But we have plenty of time to do it!

Shop early!

Be of good cheer!

 

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Technorati Tags: best shopping days, christmas shopping days

If you’re trying to make your holidays greener this year, try an eco-friendly Christmas letter template to create your annual holiday letter. Templates are environmentally friendly because they allow you to use just the right amount of paper for your project. Forget about buying store-bought stationery with 50 sheets of Christmas letter paper when you only have 47 people on your mailing list. Using a printable Christmas template is an eco-friendly way to make sure you’re not wasting paper – or running out!

What is a Christmas letter template? A Christmas letter template is a document, often saved in MS Word , with a festive holiday background that is ready for you to customize with your own content. They’re easy to use – you simply download the document, open it in your word processing program, and start adding your content . Basic templates may simply have a Christmas background with one text area, while more advanced templates may include sections for you to add your own photo, or may be laid out in newsletter format with multiple columns, boxes and areas for your content.

Why choose a Christmas letter template? If you’re concerned about minimizing waste , a downloadable template is a good choice. When you print your own letter at home, you can help save our forests byusing recycled paper. Christmas letter paper from the store may not be available with recycled content, or the recycled content may be less than you’d prefer. With a printable template, you can choose paper with a high content of post-consumer recycled fibers.

Also, you’ll never waste paper with a template because you print only what you need. There’s no need to worry about buying a package of stationery with too much or too little paper . You’ll always have just the right amount.

Finally, when you purchase a template online, no shipping or packaging is needed. Your paper isn’t driven hundreds of miles in vehicles using fossil fuels and creating air pollution, and it doesn’t come packaged in plastic wrap. So your purchase is greener and cleaner. You can find affordable , printable Microsoft Word Christmas letter templates online at Christmas Letter Tips.com. (And for those who want to help Santa go green, you can also find printable Santa letter templates online, too.)

Have yourself a green little Christmas!

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I know that these are not crystal, but with St. Patrick’s Day coming up soon enough, these are on target!

‘Tis the time for a touch of Irish good cheer and heartfelt holiday blessings! Put a little green in your holiday season with this Thomas Kinkade Irish snowman Christmas tree ornament Collection, beginning with Issue One, Pot o’ Golden Holiday Wishes, Gift of Irish Beauty, and Sweets in Your Stocking. Before long, your collection will continue with Issue Two and additional sets of three snowman ornaments, each a separate issue to follow.‡

Available exclusively from The Ashton-Drake Galleries, this Celtic Irish art-inspired collection features Thomas Kinkade’s cozy country cottage artwork in bas-relief on the surface of each snowman. Each is a unique design, expertly handcrafted of artist’s resin and hand-painted with incredible detail. You’ll delight in the authentic trimmings of the Emerald Isle, including top hats, cloaks, capes, jackets and accessories featuring golden or silver knot-work inspired by traditional Celtic Irish art. One ornament in each set even bears a beloved Irish blessing. Insert one of your Christmas lights into the base of each ornament, and watch them glow with heartwarming light. They’re special additions to your collection or delightful collectible Irish gifts, but don’t wait. Strong demand is expected, so order now!

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Technorati Tags: irish christmas, irish christmas tree, irish ornaments, irish snowman, ornaments from ireland, st. patrick's day ornaments