Hello everybody!  I hope you guys are well.  I can vividly remember the first time I gave my mother a custom-made family calendar as a Christmas gift to her.  She started crying!  It was of course tears of joy, but I wasn’t expecting her to cry.  Be overjoyed, yes, but not cry.  Needless to say, she absolutely loved it.  She completely immersed herself into the calendar.  It was as if the world around her suddenly disappeared and it was just her and this gift that she couldn’t wait to see.  I watched her intently.  She paused at each month and you could see her eyes darting here and there, taking in all of the images.  A loving smile would appear on her face and I knew she was looking at pictures of herself with my daughters, her only grandchildren, so far.  A small laugh would escape her when she saw the funny pictures.  I got a few “Oh my gosh,” and when she reached the end of the calendar, she let out a big, “I love it!”  Sweet music to my ears.

There are many places and web sites where you can make a calendar.  So far, I’ve made mine on www.shutterfly.com because they offer great promo codes and free shipping.  The calendars always come out great.  Since I like to include more than one picture, it usually takes me more time to assemble them into place.  Once you’re done and you complete your order, the calendars are on your doorstep fast!  My cousin loves taking her pictures to Wal-Mart and making her calendar there herself!  She’s the one who gave me the idea to give a calendar as a gift because she sends me one every year.  Another tradition that we’re forming and I love putting it on my kitchen wall and looking at my gift year round.

Stay alert, stay alive.

Until next time…