The best gift that I ever received for Christmas was a personalized calendar.  The calendar was made up of photos of my niece and nephew.  My sister took the pictures of her children that had been taken when they were visiting us, and made the calendar from those pictures.

Each page was either a single picture or a group of pictures.   It was great, because every time I turned to the next month, I got to see them all over again.

If you are looking for a personal gift for a birthday, anniversary, Christmas or Chanukah, you can't choose anything better than a personalized calendar.

If you are looking to make a personalized photo calendar like the one my sister made, then a great place to make it online is Kodak Gallery.  Kodak will let you upload images of any type, then you can make your personalized calendar page by page or let the automatic uploader take over.  You can buy just one or get a discount for buying in quantity.

The personalized calendar my sister, Andrea, made was done by Kodak Gallery, and it was very well done.  The pictures were sharp and clear, and she was able to start with any month of the year, so it wasn't necessary to wait until January.  She actually started our calendars with November because that was when she gave them to us.

There are other ways you can make personalized calendars.  Handmade personalized calendars also make great gifts.  You can make these from scratch or start with a calendar form that you can buy from a craft store.

Some of the great handmade craft calendars I have seen included:

• Watercolor
• Scrapbooking
• Handmade framed photos
• Chidren's drawings

I am sure that you can come up with some ideas of your own.

If you do not feel that you are artsy enough to do any of the personalized calendar ideas mentioned above, you might consider buying a standard wall calendar and personalizing it with notes to the gift recipient.

You could add:

• Personal notes to a husband or child
• Blessings
• Poems
• Meaningful quotes
• Jokes with the answers on another day
• Birthday dates to help them remember
• Dates that you both remember

The list of what you can add into a calendar to personalize it is endless.  You can choose a calendar with pictures that your recipient will love, and add your personal notes.

What ideas do you have to add to the list I have here?  There are so many great ideas that people have come up with.  If you can think of more ways to personalize a calendar, please add it it to the comments section at the end of this page, and that way other people can use your idea.