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As November drew to a close, I noticed a marked increase in the number of #momspotting tweets about the holidays. In particular, about how the Web was inserting itself into family holiday preparations. I saw everything from checking the traffic and weather to holiday crafts to, of course, shopping online. Without a doubt, BlogHers contributed mightily to the $608 million spent online on "Cyber Monday" (November 27th). Here are a few recent ones:
jennyonthespot: My girls are doing an fun & easy impromptu holiday craft that @NoFlashCards tweeted about today: http://bit.ly/4Tmj1G #momspotting
SarcasticMomLC: Ordered something for B from Amazon yesterday afternoon & by evening already received ship notification. Freaking awesome. #momspotting
quatro_mama: So glad we r able 2 share prof. pics w/ family and friends via the interweb! Beats a photo album! #momspotting
bossy: Bossy's son is at college waiting to receive pictures on his phone of possible xmas trees as the Bossy family picks one out. #momspotting
thatwoman: RT @BOSSY: It's official... leaving the house is overrated. Online shopping rocks, and the shelves are never empty.#momspotting
musingsfromme: Doing all Xmas shopping from my uncomfy folding office chair, but at least I don't need to brave crowds! #momspotting
That got me thinking about all the ways we might use the Web to make our holiday celebrations easier and less stressful, beyond the obvious of online shopping. For my family, as for so many others, budgets are tight and bills are due. We need less expensive ways to celebrate the holidays that still let us connect and enjoy time with friends and family, near and far. So I decided to look around for some online tools that might make your holidays a bit smoother. With less guilt and stress.
First, holiday cards. Allison Worthington, mrs. fussypants, asks:
Can I look myself in the mirror if I throw in the towel on sending paper Christmas cards?
I say YES. Even before my son was born, I loved sending holiday cards. I'd have them in the mail by December 1st, and there was always a short letter updating people VERY BRIEFLY on what we had been up to in the previous year. After Douglas was born, we did the photo cards for a few years. David and I would spend hours on the letter. It couldn't be too long or too boastful. Just an update for friends and family. I also sent cards to business colleagues and clients. Until last year.
For the family card, we ditched the photo cards and just mailed a letter on holiday paper. We have a color printer, so we could print photos right on the letters. In my business, I went completely digital.
And that's what we are doing this year. Business and personal - everyone we have an email address for is getting a Jacquie Lawson e-card. It takes less time, certainly costs less than buying and mailing more than 100 cards, and the cards are truly lovely.
In fact, here's yours.
Next, decorations. It's nice to add something new to your holiday decorations every year. BlogHer CE Deb Roby has some great tips for decorating a holiday wreath that even the uncrafty can do. We put an evergreen wreath with a ribbon on our front door for Christmas but I've been looking for something new to replace it when it comes down in January, so we're going to make one of her suggestions during the holiday break week. Where else can you find crafts? BlogHer of course, and there are tons of websites with crafts, easy, complex, for kids, etc. Anything and everything you could want really.
Food. The holidays do tend to center on food and drink. Two sites that I rely on for recipes are epicurious.com and allrecipes.com. Allrecipes has been particularly useful recently. My husband mistakenly bought bread flour instead of all purpose at Thanksgiving so we dragged out the bread machine and found a good, simple bread recipe on Allrecipes. I think the only smell better than fresh baked bread is hot apple pie.
Cookies. A totally separate category of holiday food -- and apparently in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania -- an important part of a wedding reception. I love to bake, and have given cookies as gifts to friends and family for years. This year, even though I've been a bit of a Scrooge McDuck, I am still doing six different kinds of cookies -- three old favorites and three new recipes that look interesting. Aforementioned epicurious.com has a great selection of holiday cookies
