Holiday Family Activity: Make Christmas Cards

I know it seems hard to spend time with your family. There are never enough minutes in a day. Or actually, there are enough minutes for quality time, but not enough for clean up time, which makes you not even want to begin a project. Whatever your lame excuse is, I always have a good solution so you can't worm your way out of it this time.

It's winter, your kids are bored, and you don't have enough money to buy 50 Christmas cards for your extended family, your coworkers, and their nephew's daughter's friends. That's ok, we'll make Christmas cards together that will solve both of those problems!

If you're anything like me, once you get the idea of making Christmas cards in your head, you get a bit excited. Wouldn't it be great to make this "3D Santa with a fluffy beard petting a reindeer" on the front of the card.. and put the card on a stand... so that it can be perfectly perched on a mantle and the receiver of the card will be forced to keep it forever?

But once you get to the store, you realize that your grandiose plans will cost quite a bit of money and now you're thinking the cards will take too long to make, so why not just give up on the project and just buy pre-made ones. Plus, you really don't want to guilt your friends into keeping your cards, do you.

Look, if you keep thinking in this manner, you'll never be motivated to do anything remotely creative with your children. So perk up, there are easier ways to get things done that won't hurt your wallet.

First, keep things simple.

Let's tone your ideas down a bit. You don't have to make a customized card for every person. You don't have to create the most awesomely rendered reindeer, complete with real fur and an red LED light for the nose on the front of a card. Stick to three ideas at most. How about a picture of a gift, a Christmas tree, and a Santa. Now, let's simplify that even further. Must you make Santa's entire body or will a head suffice? Must your Christmas tree look real or will geometric shapes satisfy your creative urge?