The current year is nearing an end. Down here in the Southern Hemisphere where we are accustomed to long summer days of doing nothing from mid-December until well into January. Right now everybody is sending out their Christmas E-mails so that they reach their customers and suppliers before the businesses close for the break.
It is well known that Apple’s Mail.app program includes a very nice collection of stationery that can be used when sending out greetings for many events. However, the stationery that is installed with Mail.app doesn’t include anything with a Christmas feel.
Wouldn’t it be nice to correct this for free? Well Ho! Ho! Ho! You can!
Googling around, I found two free Mail.app Christmas resources that were useful.
The first is Xmas Mail Stationery 1.0.2, which is really nice, but a devil to install. This is because the stationery file doesn’t come packaged with a script. You need to place it into the correct folder location on your Mac. The instructions are clear but they warn that you might have to create some of the folders yourself. When they say that, they mean that you will be creating a heck of a lot of folders. Nevertheless, it isn’t too taxing and is well worth the effort.
Xmas Mail Stationery 1.0.2 comprises a single layout that you will find in the custom section of your Mail.app stationery browser after you have created all of the folders and then quit and restarted Mail.app. There are three photo place-holders at the top and a very festive red background. Screen shots are available at the link I gave above. I’ve just used this stationery for the Aequitas Computer Systems holiday season message, and I am very happy with how it turned out.
Once you have this stationery, you might want some cool Christmas images to use in the photo place-holders. Have a look at FreeDigitalPhotos.net. They have some great stuff for you to use!
The second batch of free Christmas stationery that I found contains a large number of different layouts. It is also very neatly packaged and is installed by means of a simple script. It is the Christmas Mail Stationery from iPresentee.com. They also do similar packs for Easter, St Valentine’s Day and Halloween.
I found the iPresentee stationery to be much simpler and less wildly Christmas than than the first product I tried. Some people won’t like this, and I didn’t feel that any layout was suitable for use as a corporate holiday greeting. However, the subtlety of these stationery layouts really does appeal to me for personal greetings. Because I celebrate a secular Christmas, I don’t want my messages overwhelmed with too much symbolism. The subtlety and nuance of this stationery pack makes it perfect for the messages that I want to send to my nearest, and dearest.
Happy Holidays to you all, and I hope that this post is useful to you as you communicate with your nearest and dearest this season. Be safe, be merry and have a great time!
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