Christmas Panic

I know, its only November but my Christmas panic officially set in yesterday. Its the same every year - as the season approaches I start to think about all the things I have to do for Christmas and the thought of it is overwhelming. So I have a few days of panic while I try to work out where to start with it all, then I get over it, relax and just work my way through it.

Thankfully I already have most of the present shopping done but I have a lot of craft projects like Christmas cards and some gifts to make. I know the reason I panic about it is because I always over-extend myself with the things I want to produce for Christmas, lately a lot of photo crafts. For the last 6 years I have made a personalised calendar for my grandparents, all on the computer with a different design each year and each month having a picture of one of the 12 grandkids. It is a very time-consuming job as I spend hours looking at templates and designs before deciding on the perfect one (which has to be appropriate for grandparents and not too similar to previous years), then input all the personal dates (birthdays, anniversaries) and collect photos from all my cousins. The rule has always been that it has to be a photo taken in the current year. Now we have a collection of calendars that shows all our progressions in the last 6 years. My month (February) shows my journey from young(ish) married couple through 2 pregnancies to a family of 4. Some of the other cousins have had a succession of boy/girlfriends and the little ones have grown from babies into big kids.

This year, though, is a departure from the usual formula because in March my grandmother passed away so this will be my grandfather’s first Christmas and calendar without her. This year’s calendar will be a tribute to my Nanna, with each month having a photo of a grandchild with Nanna, taken at any time. So far, I have a great collection of photos, some from the 70s with the grandkids as babies and some choice 70s fashions, some more recent showing a direct line of 4 generations of females (that’s my month - My Nanna, my Mum, me and Guerita) and others capturing really special and memorable moments in our lives with our grandparents. I have an extremely close extended family, so its a real joint effort with a lot of us emailing and chatting online about which photos to use. I think my Pa is really going to like having a new photo of his wife and grandkids to look at each month.

To add to this already big job (which has an earlier deadline because we are here in Mexico) I have, at last count 4 more calendars to make for other family members, all with slightly different photo combinations and set of personalised dates. Every year I seem to add more things to my list, but this year, now that we have 2 kids in the house and the incredibly busy few months we have just had and are still having, I decided to take some short cuts. I used to make each calendar in MS Publisher, painstakingly checking the dates on each month and getting the design just right, but now I have discovered a few online services with pre-made calendar templates that allow you to upload your own photos and input special dates and they will do all the printing for you and post it out. So much easier! Sure, I lose a bit of creative control, but I’m learning not to be too much of a perfectionist (read, control freak) about it. There’s heaps of other photo gifts you can order too, like professionally bound photo books, diaries, magnets, even t-shirts. I have to hold myself back from taking on any more projects for Christmas. At least this year, I am not also preparing for the birth of a baby. Getting through all my Christmas preparations last year while 8½ months pregnant was exhausting.

Now all I have to do is try and take that perfect photo of the kids for the Christmas Card - how on earth do you get a 4 year old and a 10 month old to both sit still and smile at the same time??