Birthdays and Holidays: A Year To Your Best Self Series

It’s time for my monthly year long series, a year to your best year! This month we are talking about birthdays and holidays. In February we planned out our whole year. Did you do it with me? If not, pause and run do it. Then come back while we talk more about birthdays and holidays. 🙂

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As we go throughout this year we will be taking mini steps to get certain things organized, cleaned out, and make a plan for them. It is going to be work on all of our parts. BUT SO WORTH IT!!! Stay with me this year as we tackle things, one month at a time.

So far we have:

• Introduced this year’s monthly series
• Planned out whole year out in a few months
• Learned about pain points and tackling at least one

How are Birthdays and Holidays going to help make this our best year?

Have you ever gotten a birthday card in the mail? How about a holiday card in the mail? How did it make you feel? For me, it puts a smile on my face. It makes me happy. I feel good. Do you want to do the same thing for someone else? I’m sure you do.

If you take a little bit of time NOW you will be set up to spread joy through snail mail all year long. Woohoo!!

My sister in law is awesome at sending birthday cards. She’s one of the first to wish you a happy birthday or anniversary on Facebook. She is great at remembering and spreading joy. I have wanted to send out birthday cards for years. But I just never got around to it. I didn’t want to start in the middle of the year. I was never ready at the beginning of the year. Until now!

Late in December I made a trip to our Dollar Store where I found great cards for 50 cents! I have been buying cards there for years. This is a great place to buy cards if you need to buy as many as I did.

7 Steps To Have Cards For Birthdays and Holidays Ready for Everyone

Get ready for the 7 easy steps to make you the birthdays and holidays card queen or king!

Step 1: Write all the birthdays down

If you took the time to write all of your family and friend’s birthdays when you planned your whole year out in a few hours you will thank yourself now. 🙂 You just save a lot of time. If you haven’t taken the time to gather everyone’s birthday here is what you do:

• text, email, call everyone to get birthdays’ for siblings, parents, nieces, nephews, cousins, grandparents, friends, etc. Don’t forget to get their year, that might come in handy when picking out cards.
• Write down all the birthdays in the same place. I made a Google Calendar of people’s birthdays and anniversaries. It is connected to mine and Eddy’s phone so we have them very handy. At the beginning of each year I write all birthday’s on our wall calendar so we are ready for the year. I was gifted a darling pocket calendar that I took a few minutes to write everyone’s birthdays on. This is what I used at the store.
• You can type up each month with everyone’s birthdays in a word document. This would make it easy to use year after year. Simply update each year and your good to go.

Step 2: Pick cards for everyone

Grab your list, carve out some time, and head to the store. I mentioned before I went to the Dollar Store to purchase 50 cent birthday cards. They have a pretty good selection. When you need to buy as many as I did, over 80, you need 50 cent cards. 🙂

I parked my cart, pulled out my pocket calendar, and started card shopping. Start with January and in order of the dates pick out cards for everyone on your list. I kept mine in order in the top basket of my cart. When I checked out I asked the checker to keep them in order. They were happy to help.

Step 3: Write names on cards

I may have given myself an extra step. Next year I may do it differently… Once I was home and ready to start working on the cards I wrote their names in the top right corner where the stamp will be placed. Or I wrote them big on the front if I was going to hand deliver them (my little family).

If you want to not have as many steps then while you are at the store, write the names as you pick them out. My little asle I was on was busy and I didn’t have a pencil. Next year I’ll hopefully be there at a less cowded time and have a pencil. Just in case I make a mistake I want to be able to erase it.

Step 4: Organize in container

I looked for a bit before I finally decided to buy this clear plastic container from Amazon. What I like about this one is the size! It’s huge. I can fit all 80+ cards, stamps, pen, pocket calendar, and extra cards.

This conatiner makes it easy to label the tabs (three months per tab, plus a few extra) and filed cards in the correct place. I put stamps and a pen into the container to have when I need them.

Step 5: Buy stamps

This is not a necessary step but it will sure make it easier on you every month. Figure out how many cards you will be mailing and buy that many stamps plus a few more. It’s always nice to have stamps on hand. Leave these stamps in the container you organized in the step above. You will have most everything you need on hand.

Step 6: Beginning of each month get cards ready

I try to look at the next month when there is about a week left in the current month. I’m checking to see when I have birthdays that month. If they are at the beginning I start then to get them ready. Or just wait and mail them late. That’s just what I did in April. Haha! If I don’t have birthdays early in the month I wait until the new month is here.

I grab my container, address book, and address stamp. Oh my! My address stamp have been such a great investment. I will never NOT have one. 🙂 Pull out your list, the birthday cards for the month, pen, stamps, address book, and address stamp (if you have one). Usually in one sitting I will write a short message on each card, put the stamp on, adress the envelopes, and leave them open for the rest of my family to sign their names.

I sure love seeing their names written and I hope those getting our cards love it too.

This part can take some time. It will be nice to get it all done in one batch then try to do it each time you need to mail a card out.

Step 7: Mail out cards

I mail the cards that have birthdays coming up right after the cards are ready. The rest I leave in a paperclip hanging above my wall calendar. When it is time to mail them out I just walk them to the mailbox. Super simple!

Extra

If you are wanting to do this same thing for holidays and anniversaries simply follow the same steps but keep holidays and anniversaries in mind. File them away in the correct month with the recipient’s name on the card.

Conclusion

Is having birthday and holiday cards a necessity? Nope. It’s a fun bonus that will bring a smile to the birthday boy or girl. Young and old. 🙂 By following these simple steps you will be ready to send cheer all year long. So who is ready to start getting their birthdays and holidays cards ready for the year??

Please share this post with others that like to be organized, want to be more organized, and love to send out cards. My social media share buttoms are below. Thanks a million!

Xxx, Steph