As Christmas approaches, for those of you who celebrate the holiday, I want to share one of the best presents I have ever received. It is a gift that was homemade by one of my best friends, she spent more time than money on its creation, and it has provided me YEARS of entertainment.  It is a perpetual calendar.

This calendar is actually a box full of 365 index cards, one for every day of the year. My friend, who is very artistic and creative, hand wrote a day of the year in the top right hand corner of each card. She also inserted decorative cards for each month of the year. She filled out one sample card for me, so that I knew what this gift was when she gave it to me, back in September of 2013 as a birthday gift.

As you can see by the two sample cards below, each day I write the year and I make a note of something that happened that day.  Typically, my routine in the morning is to write my note about the previous day, and then read what I had written on today’s card for the past few years.  The first year I had the cards, I didn’t write every day (as you can tell by the fact that December 19, 2013 is missing). But once I went through the first year and began again, I was disappointed on any day that didn’t have a note. So I have made a conscious effort to write something every day.

I try to write something positive, though that doesn’t always happen. Sometimes I write about work; others times I write about something I did on a weekend day or after work. It’s usually just a simple phrase about my life.  What makes this so great is that it’s a gift that keeps on giving.  Every day I have as many as 5 little memories to read about. It’s so much fun when I am reminded of something fun or exciting, like my African Safari, or getting a new job, or skydiving! It’s funny when I can text a friend and say, “Hey, remember when you came down to San Diego and we had dinner two years ago today? Let’s do that again soon!”  Sometimes I text someone to say, “I wrote this on my perpetual calendar 4 years ago. Any idea what I was talking about?!” As much as I am a digital woman, despising paper in most of my life, I truly love the fact that I have to handwrite a note each day on these cards. The ability to flip through index cards and get a sense of my life is fun and thought-provoking.

This perpetual calendar is a record of my life over the last 5 years, with space for many more years to come. I truly love this gift and treasure the time my friend took to make it for me. When I mentioned this to her again the other day, she told me I should blog about it. So here it is. Thank you, Lauren!

I encourage you to give this amazing gift to a friend or family member who enjoys journaling, or the idea of journaling without the time! You might ask Santa to bring you this as a gift this year, or you might just create it yourself.

Perpetual Calendar