Blending Practicality with Personality: The Custom-made Calendar
We tend to put gifts into two categories: the practical and the thoughtful. Practical gifts can be tools, appliances, or even those sets of socks and underwear kids dread to find under their Christmas trees. Thoughtful gifts tend to show that the giver knows the receiver well and took extra time to come up with something memorable: maybe a poem or a reference to an inside joke. However, these presents–while appreciated–tend to find themselves cluttered in drawers or closets after a few months, not being able to do much more than exist as a gift.
Still, the best of all presents have a charming, subtle way of combining the two for something both useful and well-planned.
And one Christmas, my father hit this unique jackpot.
The initial wave of gifts had winded down, everyone beginning to stretch, yawn, and regret having gotten up so early, when my dad pulled out a thin present from behind the tree for my mom. She opened it up and laughed with delight. There on her lap was a custom-made calendar with pictures of their grandkids. My parents were still new to the grand-parenting stage, so any pictures or videos were immediately cherished. Always good with computers, my dad had meticulously planned and produced this calendar over the previous two weeks and had impressed all of us there. And it was the perfect gift: my mom likes to keep a calendar hanging in the kitchen, and now she has something even more enjoyable to look at.
The grandkid calendar instantly became a Christmas-time mainstay. Even while he gave her new gifts as well, every year my father comes up with a new calendar for her to enjoy. And as the number of grandchildren grows, the pool of pictures from which to draw becomes even larger. Now, each month is themed, so my mom can see Sydney and Addison in their Halloween costumers during October and Jackson and Julia hunting for Easter eggs in April.
All in all, a custom-made calendar can be the perfect solution to anyone stumped with what to give. Even businesses have turned to promotional wall calendars to not only give their clients something to use, but something to remember them by, with their name imprinted at the bottom. Utility and individuality have not fit so nicely on the same page–or in the same month.