Calendar Gifts for Christmas?

[rachaelsscraps]

Well, I wanted to try giving out some calendars for Christmas, and even bought some tools for doing it... but I am wondering a few things..
Those of you who have given them as Christmas gifts, do you put month-specific photos in the coordinating months?
Like, will you put a 2009 Christmas photo in the December page to go into your December 2011 calendar? Does that seem weird to you since it's different years?
And I know it'll be a great gift to the grandparents to get calendars with my kids photos, but if you were giving one to your sister who has a child, would you try to find a photo of your own kids, your kids with her kid, or just her kid?
I don't really know what to do with photos now, lol

[jacinda]

I'm going to do a calendar for my Mum, and she just happens to have 12 grandkids, so it works out perfectly, so one of them will go in each month.

On my own calendar I'm just going to put fairly recent photos of my own kids, because by the end of next year even those photos are going to look pretty old.

I'm probably going to make a calendar for my brother and his wife too. They have identical twin girls. I think what I'll do with them is pick a photo of their girls from say Feb 2010 for the Feb 2011 page. That way they'll get to see/remember what their girls looked like exactly a year previous to that date. Make sense? I'm still deciding on this calendar and method.

I think your sister would prefer a calendar with photos of her own kid, or her kid with cousins/grandparents etc. I know that's what I'd prefer anyway. Even though I love my nephews and nieces I'm not really interested in seeing a calendar of them all year.

[rochelle789]

I'm making calendars for the grandmas only, so I will use pictures of my kids and no one else. My kids are the only grandchildren on either side though, so that works well.

As for the pictures, I will use a January 2010 photo in the January 2011 page (and so on throughout the year). It's fun to look through the calendar and see the changes over the year, especially if the kids are little.

[schock77]

I'm making calendars for the grandmas only, so I will use pictures of my kids and no one else. My kids are the only grandchildren on either side though, so that works well.

As for the pictures, I will use a January 2010 photo in the January 2011 page (and so on throughout the year). It's fun to look through the calendar and see the changes over the year, especially if the kids are little.

I do this too- but I include one for my sister (single and no kids) and for myself. Though I've noticed some months my pictures aren't as great, but I still try to stick January pics in January etc. It's amazing to look back and see how much they've grown in one year's time! Now to decided where to print...

[emmasmommy]

i do the same. for december i usually just pick another 'winter-y' type photo.

[Penny Springmann]

I don't worry about the photos matching the months. I make 3 calendars every year. One for my mom with pictures of her grandkiddos and kids, one for my MIL with pictures of her grandkiddos and kids (yes, the adults WANT to be in the calendar too...They even brag about how they now take "calendar worthy" photographs. LOL), and then the 3rd one is for myself and features a mix of my boys, nieces and nephews, etc.
My brother-in-law now asks for a copy of his mom's calendar as well...which I think is pretty cool.

[rachaelsscraps]

Thanks ladies for the ideas. I was thinking along the same lines as you've all mentioned. My MIL's will be easy because my kids are her only grandkids... but my mom has 7 kids and 3 grandkids with another on the way (my sister, NOT me lol) and my dad's would be different from my mom's because some of the 7 aren't his... my family's just too complex I guess lol, I would have loved it if I could've made the same one for everyone, but I guess everyone's will be different pics :)

[maryinaz]

I've only done one calendar before and that's when my parents only had 11 grandkids so I put one on each month and then all of them on December. Now there are 13 grandkids - but 2 sets of twins, so I might double up. My mom still hangs up that calendar and it's from 10 years ago! I guess she'd like another one. :)

Unfortunately my mom would not like a calendar of just my boys.

Oh, and to answer the OP - I don't put monthly specific pics on the months - just whatever I can find.

[Giseli Freitas]

I do the 'matching months' thing on my calendars too. :)

[kscwgirl]

I do them for my mom and myself. My mom's has all 3 grandkids.. the way I do it is they all get 3 months each and then 3 months of them together. Their birthday month is always their photo.

The calendar for me is just my two.

I do the prior years photos.. jan 2011 has photos from jan 2010. I come as close to this as humanly possible with my niece.

[NettieB]

I ask for pictures from SIL, MIL, DH's family - they know the calendars are coming by now - and if there is a specific month they would like it in to say so.

Then I post process them quite a bit. ;)

DH's family gets a calendar then of the grandkids, siblings, family - usually either best picture, or best seasonal picture for the month - working in above requests - and I'm such a nerd I have a spreadsheet, so it's equal time for everyone.

My side just gets our kiddo, so it's much easier.

[newfiemountiewife]

I try to match months, and yes, I use last year's Christmas pictures for the December month.

For my mom, I just use my kids because they are her only grandkids. For Tony's mom I use his sister's kids, our kids, and his brother's kids. This year, I am not doing his brother's kids, because I asked for pictures repeatedly and didn't get them, and I ran out of time I could wait to get them done. Oh well...that's all I can do about it. So they'll just get our kids and his sister's kids.

[adrianka]

I've been making calendars for years, but only for friends and family, as I have no kids. Usually my topic is places - I did Luxembourg, Montpellier, Krakow, Kirchberg. I also did several personalised ones with specific topics like lavender, Victorian painting, butterflies... And also did totally personal ones with pictures related to that person.

When I do this, I don't care when was the photo taken (usually I don't even have the luxury of owning photos for each topic taken in every month of the year), but I try to choose one that fits the "mood" of the month. I think I'd do it the same way if I did one featuring kiddo photos.

I hope it makes sense.

[rach3975]

So far my kids are the only grandkids, but when that changes I plan to ask for people to send me photos. For my parents I'll do an approximately equal number of pics for each grandkid, for my siblings I'll do mostly their kids (if they give me enough photos), and for myself I'll do mostly my kids.

I do my pictures by theme or season rather than month. It's too hard for me to try to do it by month, since I may have a lot I want to use from one month and none from another. So Jan will be a winter photo, but not necessarily from Jan. Sept is usually schoolelated, but it'll be the best schoolelated photos from the year. If you want to do Christmas photos for Dec, I'd either use the year before or fake it by setting up a few decorations and picking outfits early. People do it for Christmas cards, so why not calendars?