One year I made a crossword puzzle with all the things that we had done that year and had photo "clues" scattered around it...It was neat, and people who needed help solving it called to ask....great way to keep in touch over the holidays! There was a website I used to make the crossword....I think it may have been dltk, but I'm not sure.

Family Fun had an idea in the November issue to take a pic of your kids throwing imaginary snowballs and gluing white pom poms on there....it looked neat, too!

Last year we (my family of 5) all stood around the Christmas tree with santa hats on and Billy Bob teeth in our mouths. We were all smiling "pretty". At the bottom we wrote, "We smile because we're friends/family and we laugh because there's nothing that you can do about it. Everyone got a big kick out of this, especially since I'm fairly serious most of the time. I'm trying to think of a new idea for this year...

Jess, I was going to mention the family fun one too...it's really cute! You could do the same with a pose in the snow, just glue some cotton, or pom-poms onto the card where the snow is and make that 3-D. We don't get enough snow here to pull that card off.

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Does Money Matter?

This year I made a crossword puzzle with family events and some holiday greetings. There are sites on the net that you can type in phrases and words and they make the puzzle for you. My only problem was that they omitted what they couldn't use and some were "must includes" for me. It worked out and turned out cute. It goes along with our card. Our 2 boys just happen to be sleeping the same way in 2 different poses and times while vacationing. I put both of these on a photo card with the phrase "wrapping up 2006". They turned out really cute.
My best card per compliments was 2 years ago which I "borrowed" from a magazine reader's idea. I put my 2+ and 4 yr old in a tub filled with bubbles, put Santa hats on both and took the bubbles and made beards. It also helped that I caught them both saying "ho ho ho" which was obvious. Last year I took them on a playground with both posing coming out of a tunnel. The angle made everyone think they were in an airplane due to the window shape.
The other idea I hope to use if our weather ever pans out is to have them lay in the leaves or snow and make fake legs. The fake legs then go over their shoulders and make them look very flexible.
Okay..I'm almost done. I have a friend who alters a different carol every year and fits in family info/events to the tune. Very cute and you always read it and then sing the song, it is unavoidable.

Has anyone tried this? Do the pompoms squish easily? I know with the postal worries and new rules that much "bulk" isn't allowed like in the past.

I think the poms would be fine in an envelope. They would squish down.

That sounds like such a cute idea! May have to try that one!

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Amy B.

I think one of the cutest cards I have seen is one my friend sent me, it had her two boys hugging and loving on each other and it said " remember santa is watching". It was really cute because we all know how kids can be with each other.