Family Calendar Cover Pages

It's that time of year again. Time of year for what has become a family tradition. It involves the whole family now -  Mom and siblings families, my HD's Dad and brother's families, and our children and theirs. In the beginning, I just made the calendars for Mom and my siblings but expanded over the years.

The Early Years

I started making family calendars with all birthdays and anniversaries. I am not positive the first year I began but the earliest dated one that I found shows 1993.

 1993

Some years I put in a little extra, like baby or early pictures of everyone or memories of growing up.

The first few years were difficult since I did not have a program and had to not only input birthdays and anniversaries every year but also had to manually change  the calendars dates.

Then I found a calendar program that kept all my information from year to year. All I have to do now is make additions or changes. That is the easy part now, even with this large family. Last count of individuals was just over eighty, then add in the anniversaries equals a pretty large number.

1994

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

I make fifteen copies for my Mom to distribute, three for my HD's Dad, two to DD, one each to two DS's and one each to a couple of grandsons. Each family group has a little different information and titles on them.

A few years ago my brother, Robert, began sending generous checks to help with the expenses for the calendars. His donation pays for the paper, ink cartridges, making copies and for the postage to mail them.  His help is very much appreciated, not just by me, but by all recipients of the calendars.

The hardest job is to come up with a new cover page each year. I try to make them interesting, unique and memorable and most family members save all of them.

Since the cover page is a surprise each year, I will post this year's calendars at a later time.