5 Simple Things You Can Do Right Now to Make Your Holiday Card Sending WAY Easier
Listen to Chrystina walk you through 5 steps to take right now to make your holiday card process way less stressful this year in Episode 10 of the Party Ideas & Logistics with Chrystina Noel podcast, above.
I realize you all think I’m crazy, but hear me out.
The holidays are going to be here faster than you think. And life gets CRAZY. So why not get some of the easy logistical stuff out of the way now so you don’t have to do it later?
Here’s a few examples of times that’s worked out well for me:
I put together a stack of all of my birthday cards for all of 2017 in December 2016. It’s turned out to be a fabulous way to do it because I didn’t need think about anything the rest of the year – it was all done already.
Spreading out the holiday card love by starting early was also a fabulous idea. There have definitely been years in the past that I have sent out Halloween cards, Thanksgiving cards, Christmas cards, and New Year’s cards just to split up the work (and drive myself less crazy). I sent the more random holiday cards to my closest friends because I knew they would understand what was up – and the New Year’s cards to clients that I didn’t want to deal with whether or not it was okay to wish them a Merry Christmas. (Click here for my post on other ways to say “happy holidays.”)
Make your list of people to send it to now.
There’s two things I do to make this easier.
I keep all of last year’s cards in a pile and can then see who sent me one so I make sure they’re on my list for the next year.
I keep the list of people I sent cards to the year before so I can start with that when I’m making the list.
Making your list early gives you time to sort through all the possible people and get you close enough to an overall number with plenty of time to make changes. People to consider including on your list are:
Family
Your best friends
Your newest friends
Your oldest friends
Co-workers
Clients
Friends’ parents (and parents’ friends?)
People from the hobbies in your life
I also recommend going through your text messages, your gchats, and your outlook contact list. And your FB friends if you’re really feeling motivated. Yes, this can result in anywhere from 10 cards to 200, you do you.
Start gathering addresses.
Send out emails to your friends now asking for addresses. That way when you need them, you’ll have them. I’ve found the fastest way to get the answer to this question is through text message, but email works great too. There are even apps (like Postable!) to make sure your address book is kept up to date.
Buy your holiday stamps now.
That’s right. They’re already available. (Thanks USPS.) Order them now so you don’t need to do it later. And if you order too many, you can just use them next year, because forever stamps last forever.
Order your cards early.
There’s no reason you can’t order your cards now. Take the photos you need to take. And if you don’t use a holiday photo, even better. You could even buy cards without a photo.
Get the addressing over with early.
Once you know how big your cards are going to be (or even if you don’t and just want to buy envelopes to get a jump start) start addressing early (just make sure whatever cards you buy will fit in those envelopes). This is the EASY step when you batch it. Take a night. Watch a movie. And write your return address 75 times on the cards. Pre-stamp all the cards. You can do it on a road trip. You can do it while waiting at the doctor’s office. It’s mindless. Relish in it.
BONUS TIP: The real secret to doing your cards as efficiently as possible.
Admittedly, it’s all a matter of batch processing. If you do all of the return addresses at the same time, all of the receiver’s addresses at the same time, add all of the stamps at the same time, close them all at the same time, and decorate them all at the same time it will go much faster than if you do one card to completion followed by the next card to completion.
And if you have little ones in your life, I bet they would love to help with some of that repetitive stuff. I know I would have loved to as a kid.
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This year I’m thinking about sending out a yearly recap of what happened in 2017 as opposed to handmade cards. In past years I’ve definitely handmade all the cards, and in some years I’ve printed the cards myself and just written in them, but this year I think I’m going to go with a printed option, which will allow me to spend more time and energy on birthday card making for the upcoming year.
