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?

Is the idea of a gift as a picture a little too simple or can you just accept that it's cute and people will appreciate the effort you made just to create these cards? Don't forget that as cute as your cards will be, people will pretend to want to keep them forever, but ultimately your card will be thrown away. Making people a simple card allows them to throw it away guilt free, and won't upset you in the process.

Make a short list of materials you need. A short list.

I know you want there to be tinsel on the tree and a real beard on Santa, but let's face reality. You'll probably be yelling at your children that they're putting too much tinsel on the tree or yelling inwardly that you should have bought Elmer's glue because a glue stick refuses to hold onto the cotton that is Santa's beard. So before you run out to the store, make a list of materials that you'll need.

Here's where I'll tell you what to buy because if I don't, you really are going to sit in that aisle overwhelmed by all of the products and that defeats the purpose of this article. Alright, get both types of glue. The stick and the gooey stuff. Construction paper. Ribbon (It doesn't matter what color or which kind, just get some cheap ribbon). A pack of large index cards, preferably unlined, 4x6. Scissors. A black marker. This should cost you about ten dollars at a dollar store. Hopefully you already have the glue, scissors and marker, and if you don't, why not?

Design the card with simple shapes.

Now that you're back home, I know it, you still have those grandiose ideas about making really pretty cards. Just remember that this project is for your little children to have fun and using simple shapes in your designs will prevent a lot of frustration and keep you motivated. The gift will be.. a square. Yep, it's that simple. The Christmas tree will be a tall green triangle with a yellow star at the top. Santa is a bit more complicated but not too much. He's merely a circle for a face, a red triangle for a hat, and a white circle for the tip of his hat.

Then make a white rectangle for the beard, and two skinny, long, white triangles for the mustache. Sometimes, for Santa's mustache, I use thin pieces of scrap paper so I don't even have to cut out the thin triangles. It makes Santa look a bit more "real" if that's even actually possible. At least he looks less geometric. If you want to get a bit fancier, you can cut slits at the end of Santa's beard so it's not a flat, plain rectangle. The Christmas tree doesn't have to be a mere triangle either. I'm sure you remember from elementary school how to draw an easy Christmas tree that had 3 pointy limbs on each side.

Make a sample of each type of card for your kids to follow.

Now, I know that your children are quite smart but make them a sample card anyway. Sometimes they don't always catch on to what you're doing so just relax. The idea is to have fun and stay motivated, remember? A sample card gives them the overall picture so that they don't bug you every step of the process. Dictating can be quite a chore.

Anyway, the size of your decorations is determined by the size of the index cards you bought. Simply fold a card crosswise. (Yes, it's going to be smaller than the average pre-made cards. At least you're making yours with love.) Use the glue stick as much as possible because gooey glue has a tendency to incite anger in parents, especially when kids are trying to put the Santa together. Use the gooey glue for emergency patches because sometimes glue sticks aren't good enough.

Time to add a bit of flair.

This is what you've been waiting for. That ribbon I told you to buy, that's the key to satisfying your flair craving. Cut two pieces of ribbon to fit the length and width of the square gift and glue them on the gift in a "t" shape. Then cut enough ribbon to make a little bow, which you will then glue to the top of the gift. If you want, you can make a small bow, but with really long tails, which you can curl by scraping scissors across the ridges of the tail. Viola. Now for the Christmas tree. Cut pieces of ribbon that fit diagonally across the tree; three should do. These ribbons are the "lights" on the tree.

If your child glues the lights on horizontally and not diagonally, refrain from fixing it. Inconsistencies of this nature are cute. Santa needs no ribbon, unless perhaps you were thinking of making him a sash, but why you'd want to do that I have no idea. You can poke a hole in the corner of a card, tie some ribbon through it, and now the card can be easily attached to a gift bag. Or poke holes on both side of the opening of the card, tie a ribbon through it, and now it's as if the person has to open the card like a present, by untying the ribbon.

More flair.

If you have beads, you can glue ornaments on the tree, which is another reason why you should have the gooey glue around. Glitter looks good on anything too. Have you ever saved old Christmas cards that were given to you? Cut out the pictures from the cards and glue them onto your newly created ones. Now that you're thoroughly motivated, I'm sure that you can come up with new ideas that you'll put into practice. Never forget about the power of crayons and marker. Santa needs eyes, after all.

The ornaments for the tree can be colored in. Mix and match ideas. Put construction paper gifts under your construction paper tree. Color a Christmas tree behind the construction paper gift. The possibilities are endless, and you spent less than ten bucks at the dollar store for this beautiful moment.

Finishing up the card, simply.

So hopefully by now you'd have 3 index cards, folded in half, each one with simple geometric shapes on them, enhanced with ribbon and/or crayons and whatever. Cute decorations all on boring white cards. Well here is a very simple way to spice up the way your cards look without you running back to the store to buy LED lights. When you open up a store bought card, you'll notice that on the right side is usually where the greeting goes. Now open up your index card.

It's white, and it's boring. So instead of writing "Merry Christmas" on a boring white space, keep your black marker capped for a minute. Cut out a colored square of construction paper that is just a bit smaller than the right side of the card. Write "Merry Christmas" on the colored paper, and have your family sign it. Then glue the colored paper onto the right side of the index card. The white part of the card now becomes a nice border, and all of a sudden, your Christmas message won't look so boring anymore.

Doing arts and crafts with your children can be frustrating and messy. Just remember, in order to stay motivated this winter, keep it simple. Make samples for your children to follow and watch their creative juices churn out something that looks better than you had imagined.