About two months ago my sister left to go on a year and a half mission for our church. I am so excited for her and so happy but I am also sad. I am sad because I can now only communicate with her through letters/emails and she can only write/email me back on Monday’s so it is a big difference from calling her 3-5 times a week and talking for hours each time, which is what we were doing before she left. Since she is going to be gone for so long and since I miss her so much I wanted my Christmas gift for her to be a special one. One that would make her laugh, smile and cry at the same time and different times. The gift I came up with, thanks to some help from Pintrest, was Open When Letters.
As soon as I saw it I knew it would be the perfect gift, the one I was looking for, because I could send her a Christmas gift and also a few other envelopes for other days that she might need cheering up.
Open when letters can really say anything. It does not have to be the specific ones I chose which were:
-Open Right Now
-Open when it’s Christmas!
-Open when you’re a sick person
-Open when you feel sour (sad)
-Open when You’re missing the Blegens
Some other ideas you could use:
-Open when it’s your birthday
-Open when it’s Easter (or any other Holiday)
-Open when you score well on an exam (for someone away at school)
There are just so many ideas for what kind of envelopes you can make and it is fun making them specific just for the person they are for so get creative!
The supplies that are needed really varies on what you decide for the envelopes and what you decide to put in each of them. To give you some ideas I will put down what I put in each envelope and hopefully that will help out.
1. Open Right Now
This envelope I think is a good one to have for every “open when letters” package because it is a simple way of letting the person know what this gift is all about. In this envelope I put in:
-A letter describing how the open when letters worked, below is what I wrote for this:
“These envelopes are open when…letters. On each cover it will say when you should open it. So for example on the “Open When You Feel Sour” envelope you will open it on a day that you are feeling sad. Then the other envelopes work the same way. No peeking! Even if you don’t feel sad your whole mission and end up having to bring it home you can’t open it until you are sad! No cheating. I will know! ”
-a handful of candy so that she wasn’t just stuck with a short letter.
2. Open When It’s Christmas
In this envelope I put in:
-A handful of candy, because who doesn’t love some candy on Christmas morning?
-A few gold coins
-A recipe for my Grandma’s chocolate chip cinnamon rolls because we always have these for breakfast on Christmas morning
3. Open When You’re a Sick Person
The drawing on the front of this envelope is pretty silly, my husband and I let our daughter scribble away and he turned the scribbles into a sick person, pretty smart and silly I think.
Inside this letter we put:
-Hot Chocolate Mixes
-A Binky with a note saying “Suck it up baby and get back to work”, a little harsh if you are looking at it as an outsider but my hubby is a big jokester and thought of this one and we both know that this will make her laugh
-A pregnancy test because every time she would tell me she wasn’t feeling well before she left for her mission I would tell her it was because she was pregnant, jokingly of course!
-A couple pages of inspiring quotes to help her get through the day
4. Open When you Feel Sour
I don’t normally think of feeling sour as feeling sad more like mad but it went along with one of the items in the envelope:
-Warhead, see it works well together!
-A silly picture, I chose one of my daughter from when she was a few months old because it makes me laugh every time I see it!
-A few pages of jokes, I chose churchy ones since she is on a mission and all.
Here is one of the jokes to give you a laugh:
My wife invited some people to dinner. At the table, she turned to our six year old daughter and said,”Would you like to say the blessing?” “I wouldn’t know what to say,” she replied. “Just say what you hear Mommy say,” my wife said. Our daughter bowed her head and said: “Dear Lord, why on earth did I invite all these people to dinner?”
5. Open When You’re Missing the Blegens
This would be one that is pretty specific to my sister since my family is the Blegens and if you sent an envelope to your loved one saying this than they would probably become very confused so you can easily change this to fit your specific needs.
I put in the envelope:
-A collage of pictures of myself, my husband, our daughter, our son (the ultrasound picture at the top) and a few with us and my sister
-Paintings from my daughter, her first ever paintings to be exact and it is now her favorite thing to do
-A letter from myself and one from my daughter, I just held her hand while she held a pencil and wrote “I Love You, Love Savannah”
This was such an easy, fun and inexpensive gift to put together. We all had a good time as a family decorating the envelopes, thinking of what to put in the envelopes and thinking about how happy my sister would be to get this great gift! I love how it can be tailored to anyone and that you can do as little (1) to as many envelopes as you want to do.
Let me know who you would make open when letters for? What would you call the envelopes and what would you put in them?
I truly enjoyed this post. I love to write letters, make up cute/funny cards so this really struck my creativity bone! I’d send them to my niece who went out-of-state to college and it’s her first time being away from home – ever! Thanks for these awesome ideas!
what a fantastic idea. These would be perfect for a loved one that had to be away for some time. what a treasure
That is a lovely idea. It will be a great way for your sister to feel connected.
I loved this article! My sister and sister-in-law are both serving missions for the LDS church and this would be such a cute idea for them.
Despite the ease of email and texts, I love writing letters/notes. It’s so much more personal and appreciated!
what wonderful Ideal,,love this
These are so wonderful to give Open letters on certain days to loved ones. I think it is a genius idea and I would love to give one of these to my sisters!
I think it’s so wonderful when people do mission work. My sister and brother both have but not for as long as your sister. That is just wonderful. I think your idea on how to incorporate your family into a Christmas gift and how to make light of each situation she may face as she is away from loved ones is wonderful. I loved reading your post and hope you will keep us updated when you hear from her. Just found your blog but I am really impressed. Good luck.
I realy like this idea and I love it that a child can do it or can do it with a help of a parent. I think it would make a child think about the recipient amd they can be involved. This would be fantastic for Grandparents or Aunts/Uncles.
I do this for my son who went away for the military – Open for Christmas, you birthday etc…then he will call if he can or shoot a text to let me know he read it and it melts my heart 🙂
I believe letters are precious present your feelings and what we want to share is written.
This is a wonderful post. I remember back when, (lol), when everyone used to write letters to communicate. Technology sort of ruined the joy of getting letters in the mail everyday but I love writing letters and actually love saving them as well. I still read letters that I saved from years ago.
this is so awesome!