Making Presents
Tim Bray, writing about making your own Christmas presents:
Calendars · If you’re a photographer, a calendar is another pretty good option. I found some quietly-elegant calendar templates at about.com. So I made Lauren a 2009 calendar, each month on a sheet of 8½x11 with a big family picture from the corresponding month the year before. I took it to the copy/ship shop down on the corner and they bound it neatly for a couple of bucks.
This is a great idea, and, as it happens, we did something similar this year too — a calendar of 2008 pictures, by month — for my parents-in-law. While I’m not a (serious) photographer, I think the result came out pretty well. We didn’t print it ourselves (FedEx did, and charged far too much, long story) so this isn’t quite making the present, but it was definitely worth doing.
I’m pretty sure we’ll do the same again next year (and just get someone else to do the binding). As long as I can take enough decent pictures, anyway — better start now, I guess!