Search Results for: blog what to do with all those holidays cards

Creative Ways to Tip This Season: Free Gift Cards and More

How many people do you have in your life who are on your tipping list for the holidays? The hair stylist, school bus drivers, teachers, the trash man, the postal clerk or delivery person (there are rules on type and amount), the baby sitter or nanny, the coffee barista and anyone else who provides you a regular service, may all be expecting a holiday tip. At least one service provider of ours actually leaves an envelope just for the purpose. Most of us forget to add tipping expenses into our budgets and may be left with a surprise when we … Continue reading →

Halloween Freebies from Kraft, Hallmark, Hershey’s, and More!

Halloween is just a few weeks away. There are plenty of Halloween sales, deals, and freebies to be found. Those of you who look forward to celebrating the spookiest of holidays will want to check out some of these deals. Make your Halloween fun, and save money while doing it. Kraft Foods is giving away free JELL-O Halloween Brain Molds. It comes with an 8 page recipe brochure that has different brain mold recipe ideas for you to make this Halloween. To get this freebie, you need to go to the Kraft Foods page that mentions it, and put the … Continue reading →

What Really Happens in the Classroom?

My 7-year-old and I play a little game on the ride home from school each day called “High Low.” After we clear the madness that is the school’s parking lot we take turns telling each other one high point and one low point of our respective days. A couple of weeks before Christmas my daughter shared a “high” of crafting Christmas cards for her teacher’s 20-something-year-old unmarried daughter who couldn’t make it home to Wisconsin for the holidays. I didn’t get all the details, but I from what I gathered, the teacher’s daughter had to remain in Texas for some … Continue reading →

Do Your Pets Factor into Your Holiday Plans?

Do you make your holiday plans around your pets? That’s an assertion that the Associated Press recently made in an article: pet owners revolve their late-December events around their pets. Examples given by the AP include taking holiday-themed photos of pets, using these or other pictures with the animal for seasonal cards, buying pets gifts (the article maintains that just over half of pet owners do this), and even creating special menus for the pet so it can have a holiday meal alongside its human family. There are two sides to this: one, in which a little holiday cheer is … Continue reading →

Don’t Miss This Week’s Christmas Sales!

Last year, it seemed like the stores waited until after Christmas before they started their big sales on Christmas decorations. This year, those sales have already begun, even though Christmas is still more than a week away. Here are a few Christmas sales that you won’t want to miss. Sears has a sale where you can save up to 40% off their entire Christmas Shop. This includes their trees, (including fresh-cut trees), wreaths, lights, ornaments, outdoor decorations, and Christmas collectibles. If you shop the website, you can get free shipping on orders of $99.00 or more when you use the … Continue reading →

How Do You Get It All Done?

During this holiday season, how do you get it all done? There are so many activities and preparation, from baking cookies to chauffeuring kids to play and concert rehearsals, buying gifts to decorating the house. Today on the Families.com Facebook page, the question to answer was how do you get it all done? How can you fit in all of the things that you need to do during the holidays? There were a lot of great responses, such as to be more like our husbands and ignore it all to play video games without guilt (Gardens of Time, anyone?). But … Continue reading →

Diffusing Family Drama during the Holidays

When my children were younger, it was so much easier to shield them from certain things…for instance, family drama. For the most part they weren’t aware of some of the “interesting” behavior that sometimes transpired between family members. Now that they are teens, well, they are more than aware of what happens. In fact, now they have an attitude of “So what is it going to be this holiday?” I really hate that. I mean, it grieves my heart that my children have to wonder what new drama will unfold. But family never lets them down…sure enough, our Thanksgiving started … Continue reading →

How to Prepare Your Christmas Cards

Are you always behind on preparing your Christmas cards or Holiday cards? Here are some easy steps that you can take to make the process smooth and fun this year. First, get your list started. This may simply be a review of last year’s list. If you don’t have a list, you’ll have to start from scratch. Figure out if you need separate lists for home and business. A good place to start is with your address books. Start with the people that you know you must send cards too. Prioritizing gives you some wiggle room. Instead of trying to … Continue reading →

Don’t Lose Gift Card Money

Do you still have some gift cards hidden in your home somewhere? Now is the time to use them. Apply them to holiday gift purchases to ease the burden of holiday spending, or use them to brighten up your home or your wardrobe. The reason I am giving you this reminder is that many of us received gift cards during the holidays last year that we still haven’t used. While there are new laws now that offer us some protections, some of those protections expire after a year. Here is the low down on what those protections are: Your gift … Continue reading →

Enter the Hallmark “Get Carded” Contest

Greeting cards are a special way to show people that you care about them. Receiving a card from someone you love makes your whole day a bit brighter. Tell Hallmark your best story of giving or receiving a card. You could win cash to put toward a trip to visit someone special. Hallmark might be the biggest greeting card producer and distributer in the entire world. It is definitely the most popular. Every store that sells cards will have some that are made by Hallmark. There is a reason why holidays like Valentine’s Day and Sweetest Day are often referred … Continue reading →