I'm not necessarily good in the poem department but I have an idea for your ornaments. That is, print out pics of your family members, your folks' friends, etc. and glue them onto cardstock with a few embellishments, and punch a hole in the top for a piece of yarn, etc. as a hanger. Another idea is, you and your sibblings and especially the grandchildren write something on the back of the cardstock with their pic on it in gold/silver magic marker and I'm sure your folks would just be thrilled with joy that they can decorate their new tree with familiar faces and writings from the heart! You could make the topper star out of thicker cardstock and write in glitter or just plain marker, something like ".... Family Christmas Tree." Walmart has a great selection of cardstock/scrapbooking stuff at reasonable prices. Buy a "booklet" of Christmas cardstock (Joann's Fabric & Craft store carries these and their on sale right now). There'd be enough cardstock in one of those books for everyone to get enough for all their family members. They'd coordinate on the tree also. Cut the cardstock in winter shapes - trees, glass ornaments, ice skates, sleds, snowballs, etc. Trace the hands of the grandchildren onto colored construction paper, cut them out and take digital photos of them, upload them to your computer and then downsize them to fit on the cardstock when you cut them out. A good size for the pics to fit onto premade hang tags is 2.25 width by 3.75 height. You don't need an expensive computer photo program to do this, just use your Word program. When you paste a pic on a piece of paper in word, click on the photo and a black lined box will appear around it. From there, click on the little "moveable" edges and downsize it to the correct height and width. Make your "ruler" appear on the page for easy sizing. Regular tacky glue like Elmer's glue is watery and runny for paper crafts (the pic will buckle), get a glue stick or use double-sided tape to put on the back of the pics to attach to the cardstock.

Here are pics of some Christmas cards I made recently to give you an idea of what you can do. Hope this helps you.

Sal

Sal,

These are some great ideas. I love the cards you made. Very pretty. Thanks for the ideas.

You're welcome Tralynn. You'd be surprised at what some of those embellishments are, buttons with the shanks cut off (find a shank cutter at Joanne's, about $5.99 and/or use wire cutters to cut it off. Then I just glued them onto the cards. Michael's craft store has a great selection of embellishments, some on sale right now also. Wait a week or so and it's on more of a sale after Thanksgiving. How about all go Dutch with the expense of the stuff and then have a family ornie making night with hot cocoa, cookies, etc. Do ya'll get together for Thanksgiving dinner? Great time to check it all out, pass around ideas and dibby up the goods! I bet the little cousins and even the big ones would love this family night!

I just thought of - outlining the little ones hands onto colored construction paper or cardstock, cut it out and then downsize a pic of them on the computer and glue it onto the center of the hand, glitter it a little bit, etc. What about the smaller school pictures the kids have taken, could you use them? Write the letters of their names in glitter on the fingers. Martha Stewart scrapbooking stuff (at Michael's or Walmart (which is a few bucks cheaper on everything of her stuff) has a tiny tip glue writing pen that would be perfect for this project. I'm sure the kids would love making these, sprinkling on the glitter - glitter on their little noses, all over the hands, all over the table - oh, have fun with it.

Hope you'll post your end ideas so we all can see what you come up with. This sounds like a great gift of love you'll be giving your folks this year.

Sal