Now is just a good a time as any to reflect upon your life and to make plans for positive change in the months (and the year) ahead. Year after year, one of the most popular resolutions made is to reconnect with friends and families. With that in mind, here’s one resource for making 2011 your best yet:
Recent polls conducted by General Nutrition Centers and Quicken show that more than 50% of Americans aspire to appreciate and spend more time with family and friends in the coming year. When it comes to reaching out, showing appreciation and reconnecting, personalized stationery is a great first step towards making more frequent and more meaningful connections with your loved ones. Here’s how: when you are prepared with beautiful stationery, you will be excited about (and therefore more likely to) reach out to the important people in your lives on both the biggest and the smallest of occasions.
A 2011 calendar and a current contact list are all you need to get started. Whether you choose to plug important dates into your PDA, or prefer an old- fashioned wall-calendar, use the following list (posted throughout the next couple of weeks) to mark all the year’s important dates and events. The next step is to get into the habit of looking a few days or a week ahead in order to send timely and relevant notes to loved ones on important holidays and celebrations. One idea is to make the first Sunday of every month "letter night" where you (alone or with your family) sit down to write notes to loved ones — whether there is a holiday coming up or not!
You just might find that stationery also helps you hold some of your other New Year’s Resolutions. Beyond reconnecting with loved ones through the mail, you will also be creating quality family time, getting organized and saving money.
Some of these dates will be obvious, time-honored traditions. Others will be totally new to you. Keep an open mind and see our suggestions over the next several days for turning even the most obscure of holidays into excuses for making meaningful connections with your loved ones. . .starting today!
Read: Introduction | Jan. – March | April – June | July – Sept. | Oct. – Dec.