“Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.” – Norman Vincent Peale

This is the quote I’m putting in my personalized holiday cards this year. Isn’t it lovely? I thought so too. I always have my Christmas cards customized with our names but I also like to include a quote that inspires people (or at least inspires me). I love this quote because it made me realize how true it is that everything seems a little better and a little brighter at Christmastime. People seem cheerier, stores and houses are decorated in festive colors, and family and friends seem to go out of their way to be nicer. Or maybe I am just so taken by all there is during this festive season that I’m the one walking around with rose colored glasses (or red and green colored glasses?). Nevertheless, I feel a magic in the air during the Christmas season that I just don’t feel the rest of the year. If you like this idea but are stumped as to what to include in your own custom holiday cards, consider some of these great quotes:

“What is Christmas? It is tenderness for the past, courage for the present, hope for the future. It is a fervent wish that every cup may overflow with blessings rich and eternal, and that every path may lead to peace.” – Agnes M. Pahro

“One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day. Don’t clean it up too quickly.” – Andy Rooney

“Christmas is, of course, the time to be home – in heart as well as body.” – Garry Moore

“Christmas is a day of meaning and traditions, a special day spent in the warm circle of family and friends.” – Margaret Thatcher

“As long as we know in our hearts what Christmas ought to be, Christmas is.” – Eric Sevareid

If you’re like me, you receive dozens of personalized holiday cards in the mail each year. You may choose to display them on your mantle or on top of your piano, or you may tape them up around the doorway to your kitchen or pin them to a bulletin board. But once Christmas and Chanukkah and New Year’s pass, what do you do with all those personalized holiday cards? If you throw them away, then it’s a good thing you’re reading this because I have some really great ideas to share that will reduce waste and maximize your creative potential!

The easiest way to reuse your old holiday greeting cards is to make gift tags from them. All you’ll need is scissors, a hole punch, and ribbon. To start, sort through the holiday cards you received and set aside the ones featuring images or graphics that you’ll want to use. If you’re making Christmas-themed gift tags, look for cards with Christmas trees, ornaments, and wreaths. If you’re making holiday neutral gift tags, set aside cards with snowflakes, snowmen, and gift boxes. Next, cut out the images with a pair of sharp scissors. You can even use an X-Acto knife accompanied by a ruler as a guide. After cutting out the images, punch a hole in each tag and tie a piece of ribbon through the hole. Use the back of each gift tag to personalize with the “To” and “From” information. And voila! That’s one less thing to spend money on next holiday season.

If you can handle making gift tags from your old personalized holiday cards, then you can definitely do this next project. How about reusing the holiday greeting cards you receive to make garland? You’ll need the same materials from the last project: scissors (or an X-Acto knife), a hole punch, and ribbon. Most people associate garland as being very Christmassy, but you can make holiday neutral garland as well. Similarly to the gift tag project, you’ll start by sorting through your old holiday cards and setting aside the ones featuring large images and graphics that suit your fancy. Again, if you’re making a Christmas-themed garland, look for cards with Christmas trees, ornaments, and wreaths. If you’d like your garland to be holiday neutral, use cards with graphics like snowflakes and gift boxes. Next, use a pair of scissors or an X-Acto knife to cut out the images (the amount of images you cut out will depend on how long you want your garland). On a large flat surface, lay your images next to each other; rearrange them as you see fit. Except for the two end pieces, punch two holes in each image – one to the far left and one to the far right. Attach each image with a small piece of ribbon. And there you have it…garland made of recycled holiday cards to string across your Christmas tree, decorate your staircase, or droop along your mantle.

This next and final project is even simpler and easier than using your old personalized holiday cards to make gift tags and garland. Do you have any favorite holiday dishes that you make each year? If so, you can share them with your family and friends by making recipe cards from the holiday greeting cards you received. To start, sort through your old holiday cards, setting aside the ones with your favorite overall designs. To make your life easier, you’ll probably want to pick cards with the same horizontal or vertical orientation. Next, using an X-Acto knife along with a ruler as your guide (or sharp scissors if you have a steady hand), cut each card along the crease, keeping the front piece with the design and discarding the piece with the inside greeting. For the recipe, you have several options. If you’re computer savvy, you can type up the recipe and print it directly onto the back of each card, or you can use a label template that is compatible with your computer and printer. If you’re uneasy about the two previously mentioned options, you can still type the recipe, print out as many copies as you need, and cut and glue each copy onto the back of each card. Once your recipe cards are complete, you can tuck them into your thank you cards or hold on to them and send them in your holiday greetings for the following year.

Now you know three easy and fun ways to reuse your old personalized holiday cards. So when the holiday season comes to an end and you’re left with a pile of cards sent to you by your family and friends, don’t just throw them away! Be creative and recycle your cards into something useful. Not only will your efforts be appreciated by the important people in your life, you will also ease the strain on your wallet.

When greeting card companies advertise that they carry personalized holiday cards, it usually means that the buyer can pick out the verse he likes from the free ones offered, have a one or two-line imprint included in the signature area at the bottom of each card, and also to have an imprint on the envelopes. This type of holiday card is pretty standard in the industry.

What can separate the usual from the unique is when cards become customized holiday cards. Rather than use standard or “stock” wording for the inside writing, cards can become custom holiday cards when a message pertaining specifically to the sender and/or the recipient is used. For instance, let’s say a professional football team decides to send out holiday cards to its new season ticketholders. By incorporating the name of the team along with some kind of good wishes for the upcoming holiday season, the team has customized their thoughts in a way that combines the spirit of the season with the sport of football. Any similar idea would work as well.

The main idea is that rather then a recipient receiving the usual typical, traditional message, you would think there would be a sense of excitement when a customized holiday card that is tailored specifically toward that relationship is received. And the recipients receiving these customized cards will certainly appreciate the thoughtfulness.

With the United States becoming a melting pot we realize that not everyone celebrates Christmas. The days of wishing someone a “Merry Christmas” are all but gone. Now we say “Happy Holidays” and refer to the Christmas tree as the Holiday tree. In New York City the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center is now “The Tree” – no Holiday or Christmas. We are seeing an influx of winter scenes holiday cards also; a winter scene makes no statement of religious affiliation. Winter scenes are a safe bet for businesses to send to their clients – there’s no chance of offending anyone! With that being said there are some very beautiful winter scenes on the cover of holiday cards. Babbling brooks and deer in the snow make a serene picture that is so nice to see and one can dream of being there to witness Mother Nature at her best. Skating in Central Park is also a delight to see. Winter scenes bring back fond memories of youth when snow meant no school instead of shoveling out our cars to get to work.

When I order my holiday cards, I like to order personalized holiday cards to make sending cards easier, not to say that it is a chore but I always seem to wait until the last minute to send my cards. Each year I promise myself to start earlier but I never do. So again personalized holiday cards are the way to go. I like to sign my cards also and try to dash off a quick note but if I don’t have too much time I don’t have to because I ordered personalized holiday cards! I get the envelopes personalized too…what a time saver! I read that about 20 billion holiday cards, letters, and packages are post marked in the U.S. between Thanksgiving and Christmas so I can’t be alone by ordering personalized holiday cards to save time!

I see them everywhere – in the dentist’s office by the receptionist, in my Aunt Lucy’s kitchen next to the old wall phone, in the “automotively” fragrant service lounge where I’m waiting to have my car repaired, even in my modest gray cubicle at work – all sorts of calendars personalized with business contact info.

So last year, using the same idea, my husband and I decided to send out personalized holiday cards, unique ones that wouldn’t be tossed out with the trash on January 1st. Purposely, we opted for calendar cards. They are tri-fold and fit in a one-postage-stamp-sized matching envelope. Since we had several lines of space at the bottom of the calendar card to work with, we personalized a message for our family and friends and ended with our first names. The words were crisply embedded with a shimmering gold foil. We tried to craft a special phrase that would be encouraging, attractive and applicable throughout the year. If we were business owners the space on the calendar card would be used for our address, phone, fax, and website info.

Confident we had made a useful choice with our holiday cards, we were further delighted to discover that our calendar cards choice was designated as environmentally friendly. That means they were produced with raw materials from forests harvested and replenished in an environmentally and socially responsible manner. The elegant card paper stock was made through wind power and in facilities where certified renewable energy is used, offsetting carbon emissions. With sustainability being a keyword these days we knew we had succeeded in our green quest.

On a related note, it’s easy for anyone to see that in tough economic times it is more important than ever to give thanks to an individual customer or client that has remained loyal – an end of the year recognition to those who have frankly, kept all our places of employment going. On the personal side we chose personalized holiday cards to keep our family connections going.

The custom Christmas cards in a colorful and artistic calendar format are useful throughout the year and a solid choice. They are responsibly produced and the green way to go.

Here are some holiday cards personalized by young students in New York for Operation Gratitude’s “Letters to Heroes” program. These cards will be stuffed in care packages and shipped to deployed service members stationed overseas. There are 21 personalized messages in total, and we strung them together for our rendition of a “21 Card Salute.”

What a great way to wish your friends and clients holiday wishes by sending snow-themed personalized holiday cards this year! Snow covered scenes are beautiful to look at and remind the beholder of warm feelings of past wintry experiences. Businesses and families from as far north as New England or out West in states like Arizona, Colorado, and Wyoming can choose card designs reminiscent of their native surroundings. Whether you live in an area landscaped with forests and streams or wide open prairies, The Gallery Collection has a holiday greeting card designed just for you.

Design #533CS, Snowy Morn Holiday Seasons Greetings Card, depicts a silvery stream gently ambling through a forest blanketed in fresh white snow. The tree branches and low lying shrubs are laden with glistening white clusters of the newly fallen precipitation. It is a calm winter morning and all seems very peaceful here. Silver iridescent foil outlines this setting and the words “Season’s Greetings” appear at the bottom of the design. The gentle beauty of this new dawning day evokes a serene holiday feeling for the recipient of this seasonal greeting card.

Design #533CS - Snowy Morn Holiday
Seasons Greetings Card

For the western part of the country design #575CS, Holiday Spirit Horses Greeting Card, shows a vast, open plain covered in snow. A herd of majestic brown and tan wild horses, kicking up snow, are galloping across this lowland toward a life free from worries and cares. The exhilaration they feel conveys a happiness that all should feel during the holiday season. The scene on this card is outlined in silver iridescent foil with the words “Season’s Greetings” below it. Now westerners have a personalized holiday card designed specifically for their locale to send out to their clients, friends, and families.

Design #575CS - Holiday Spirit Horses
Greeting Card

When my sister left for her overseas military duties, her biggest fear was missing out on all the special occasions: cookouts, birthdays, Thanksgiving, and even worse – Christmas. Every Christmas season our family comes together for our yearly custom Christmas cards strategy session. Each year we come up with a new Christmas card as a family; this was a tradition my grandparents established in our family. The fact that my sister was going to be absent from that holiday tradition, but even worse, not there for the Christmas season, was very upsetting for me. I have a very close relationship with my sister and the 2008 card would not be complete without her input.

My youngest son saw how heartbroken I was. He would look at me confused and ask, “Will Aunt Sophia be there?” I didn’t have the heart to tell him that she wouldn’t be there and that he wouldn’t see his favorite aunt for a very long time.

I attempted to cancel the Christmas card meeting but my attempt was met with a slap across the back of my head; I became the family Grinch. So when the day for the gathering came and everyone was together in my back yard lined up, I decided I wouldn’t participate. Sure I was creating a huge argument with my wife, but it was a matter of principle. Then, as I watched everyone discussing across the lawn, I saw my son holding up a picture of my sister. He waved at me and said, “I told you.” The gesture was heartwarming and I felt embarrassed for my behavior and the 2008 card was born – a family photo card. We took a photo of the entire family, my center in the center holding my sisters picture.

Off course we needed to make this card happen, so we went to our favorite personalized holiday cards website – The Gallery Collection. I chose a very festive card design that let me place our wonderful family Christmas photo as the front cover. I knew my sister would love it because it would show her that we all missed her that day and she would now have a complete family photo to comfort her.

When she received the card, she and her troops were astounded by the quality and perfection of the card. I wouldn’t expect anything less from this site. They always come through and this time they provided me with a way to help my sister feel a part of the moment.

Which would you prefer to receive…a custom Christmas card or the increasingly-popular holiday newsletter? Some say custom Christmas cards, with an imprinted holiday message and the name of the sender on the inside, are impersonal. I disagree. I think a customized imprint actually reflects the care and thought that you put into choosing your holiday card. When I have ordered such holiday cards, I always take the time to address them to each recipient and sign each individually…this is a simple way of making your holiday correspondence more personal.

Personalized holiday cards are distinctive and beautiful, often with embossed designs with shiny foil details. In the past, I have been told by friends and family that my cards are the prettiest…so pretty that they kept and stored my card with their other holiday décor instead of just discarding it like the other holiday cards they received.

I find the holiday newsletter (or the “dreaded holiday newsletter,” as I often refer to it) to be quite impersonal. What is so thoughtful about writing down all the events that have occurred in your life in the past year, printing it on some cheap paper (often with faded holiday designs), and photocopying it 50 or 60 times to send it to your nearest and dearest? If they were truly “near and dear,” they most likely already know about all the things you wrote about, especially in the age of email communication. If they do not know any of it, then perhaps they are not so near and dear after all and sending them such a newsletter will just reinforce that fact.

I love nature photos. Design #123CS, Polar Bear Greetings Christmas Card, features a great photo for a Season’s Greetings card. It has the appearance of two polar bear cubs almost kissing. What a nice scene for the holidays! However, as I look at the picture, it reminds me of my two brown labs. One is a little more mischievous than the other. I have often seen him using nips to get her to play. They mimic the same posture as these two cubs right before they end up flat on the floor in a real tousle. I wonder how long the two polar bear cubs remained standing after this photo was taken.

Design #123CS - Polar Bear Greetings
Christmas Card

All that aside, this design is perfect for your personalized holiday cards. It can be used by anyone, whether sending cards for personal or business purposes. Due to their shrinking habitat, polar bears have been featured in environmental awareness advertisements over the past years. Whether you are environmentally conscious or not, Polar Bear Greetings is just the right card to send to clients, customers, friends, and family.

In looking at design #170CS, Penguins on Parade Christmas Card, another design featuring a nature photo, I can’t help but wonder where these delightful penguins are going with such determination. This card would make a perfect personalized holiday card from a team to display their team spirit. It certainly looks like they are on a mission, and somehow they look like they are enjoying their little march through the snow.

Design #170CS - Penguins on Parade
Christmas Card

Penguins are amazing birds and a great choice to feature on your Season’s Greetings cards. The penguins pictured on in this design are Adelie penguins, the smallest of the Antarctic penguins. They are the most common of their entire genus. Penguins get used to humans and don’t consider us a threat, so they can be photographed easily.

They build their nest of stones on rocky beaches…and they will fight over the best rocks! Early to arrive, penguins have to guard their nests from latecomers. When latecomers arrive and all the good rocks are in use, they will pilfer from the nests of others. Whatever it takes to get their job done!

Mostly we think of birds flying through the air but the only time penguins are airborne is when they leap out of the water. They spend most of their time when not mating or raising young in the water, and just like other birds, they cannot breathe underwater. They jump out of the water to take a breath before diving down to feed on fish. They are also airborne for a short time when they leap out of the ocean onto land.

When you want to express the greetings of the season with your clients and customers this year, keep our polar bears and penguins in mind.