The Busy Moms' Christmas Card Guide

A busy mom’s work is never done, as Christmas holiday season is upon us, there is a never-ending list of things to get ready for. The younger children may start to wake up early with excitement every weekend in the run-up to Christmas, even though you tell them over and over again that Santa is still weeks away. So much for your weekend sleep-in, that’s pretty much a vain hope until the until the big day arrives.

Sleep aside, you are going have to juggle working, getting endless amounts of shopping, making numerous gift lists, and trying to balance the budget by taking advantage of numerous online and brick and mortar store sale promotional days like Black Friday, Cyber Monday. You might even be able to save some money from your budget by stocking up early and buying cheap Christmas cards , after all every penny saved counts to reduce hoilday stress.

Fun fact – did you know that the origins of ‘Black Friday’ can be attributed back to the 1950s, because folks started throwing sick days on the day after Thanksgiving, so that they gained a long weekend. That enabled them to gain an advantage in the store post-Thanksgiving sales, which led to a massive spike in shopping activity and store profits. The negative connotation to the name ‘Black Friday is attributed to the Philadelphia Police Department back in 1966 who encountered huge problems with post-Thanksgiving traffic jams, and an overcrowded town center, with mobs of people cramming themselves into the stores.

Since then online and brick and mortar stores have cleverly turned that connation into something positive, and very profitable, by offering large discounts and special offers that turn the day into a shopping frenzy, and online retailers have followed suit.

Okay, trivia over, back to you moms! Let’s take a look at one aspect of the season that can occupy you and stress you out for days - keeping the holiday spirit connection with friends, family and your nearest and dearest with Christmas cards, and how we can make this task simple and pleasurable for you.

Best tips for an organized Christmas card list

1. Create a system. Do you have a computerized spreadsheet list of contacts or are you old-fashioned and keep an address book? Maybe you keep you contacts on a phone? Different strokes for different folks, so work with whatever appeals to you. Update your contacts in your list with full details, names, addresses, email, telephone numbers.

2. Create a budget – like we said above, cards can vary in price from $1 to $20+, so you need work out how much to spend and then consider how many cards you are going to send, and to whom. Make it a practice to keep the cards that you receive each Christmas as an aid-memoire, so you’ll quickly know to whom to send cards.

3. Categorize – it follows from pint 2 that you have to decide who to send cards to – divide them into categories, family and extended family, friends, neighbors, community groups. If you run a business, don’t forget that you may also have to send out company christmas party invitations to your employees, so you may want to combine the invite in a Christmas card in order to save some more time and money.

Smart ways to buy your Christmas Cards

When buying cards, ‘go big or go home!’. If you buy boilerplate store cards with standard messages, it is often unmemorable for the recipients, and the cards are very likely to end up in a recycle bin after the holidays.

In addition, you are unlikely to save money on buying these cards, as they are far from cheap – a retail store sells cards for $3-6 and often makes close to 100% profit on the sale.  

You can spend a long time going to the stores, trying to find half decent ones and then handwriting them in an attempt to make them reflect you and your family’s personality. So why not do something more memorable and form the comfort of your own home go online to sites like Basic Invite where you can design your own family picture cards? You’ll find myriad styles using wonderful cardstock and fonts for your messaging, and these will be delivered to your home right in time for the holidays.

Get your significant other involved as well - and if your children are old enough they’ll really enjoy helping you design the cards online, and feel special that they are involved in the process.

You’ll be able to take advantage of early holiday season pricing with as much as 30% off holiday cards, and you can order specifically designed cards which are appropriate for the various categories that you have on your Christmas card list.

So there you have it, busy moms, follow the steps outlined here for a more pleasurable Christmas card sending experience that will take some of the holiday pressure off you, whilst also saving you time and money. Do let us know how you go about preparing your Christmas Card List and your best tips below.

Happy Holidays to all!