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May you have a joyous Christmas Day and much success, health and happiness in 2010.

From Small Business Boomers!

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Cookie making usually brings back memories of these sessions in our childhood, with our children, with community groups, or with the entire family.  We may pull out recipes used throughout the generations.  We may try new recipes.

All of these activities create memories, especially if you take photos to accompany the cookie making sessions.  One of my favorite photos shows my then 2-year old daughter and me making cookies at the kitchen table.

So…why not start a Christmas Cookie Journal with photos, memories, current activities and recipes?  Then you can make copies for other family members. 

Or…you could develop this into a business and create Christmas Cookie Journals for others.

Have any of you done this?  Either for yourselves or as a business?

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Thanksgiving blessings image: sxc.hu

Even if you have to work, you can still count your blessings.  One of mine is that dinner will be cooked and ready when I get home from work.  My daughter enjoys planning the meal and cooking.  So I help with clean – up and relax at some of my writing business tasks.

What are your Thanksgiving boomer blessings? 

We might be thankful, too, that Sarah Josepha Hale diligently persisted until Thanksgiving was recognized as a national holiday.  Even though we think of the first Thanksgiving as taking place in Plymouth Colony, this celebration didn’t become an official holiday until many years later.   A  woman from the state of New Hampshire was responsible for this recognition.

Mrs. Sarah Josepha Hale, the editor of “Godey’s Lady’s Book” and a NH resident,  decided that Thanksgiving should become a national holiday. She initiated a campaign to have a day in late fall set aside for us to give thanks for our harvests and many blessings and kept at until this was accomplished.

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Some business owners may be participating in parades today (a lovely warm sunny one in NH), may be watching parades, may have flags flying in the breeze, and may be sharing with their families their military heritage.  I’ve traced veterans in my family heritage back to the Revolutionary War serving their country so that I can enjoy my life today and develop my businesses.

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The Wall Street Journal reports that many “solo-preneurs” are not planning to slow down or shut down over the holidays. I’m certainly not going to sit around and drink egg nog and watch old movies. This is a slow time, when many of your customers may not be working, but it is also a perfect time for thinking back and thinking ahead. Here are some tips for spending your holidays to get more business or to prepare for 2009:

Review Your Business in 2008
Run the numbers. How did your business do this year compared to last year? Are you ahead of where you were last year at this time? If not, why not? If you are ahead, why? Figuring out “why” is just as important as looking at how much.

Hold a Year End Clearance Sale
Yes, it’s time to clear out clear out old inventory and get some cash while doing it. Promote a year-end clearance sale to your preferred customer list. Give great bargains. Tell your customers “I don’t want to count this stuff.” They will appreciate the savings and you won’t have the inventory on the books at year end.

Clear Out the Clutter
Now’s the time, while the phone isn’t ringing, to clear out your files. That includes email. If you tagged your email, that must have meant you wanted to do something with it. So do it. Or delete it. I have really been making an effort not to print out stuff, not only for environmental reasons, but because it just piles up. If you have those print-outs around, decide if you must have them. If you don’t, turn them into note pads (make sure there is nothing confidential on the back) or shred them for box filling.

Get Ready for Tax Season
While you’re cleaning out, be sure to save receipts and invoices and any bills associated with your business. Capturing the information is the most important part of a business record-keeping system. You might also need to print out some items that you need for documentation (but keep this to a minimum – see #2 above).

Network Online
The world is online these days, and that means you need to be too. It’s a great time to get your Twitter account moving, by finding new people to network to. Or get LinkedIn with more people; find some people to work on joint ventures with next year.

Network Locally
If your business is local, get out there and talk to people. Holiday parties are a good place to do that, with your business card in hand. If there are no parties you can go to, maybe it’s a good time to meet your business neighbors.

Plan Your 09 Sales and Marketing Strategy
After you have reviewed your business in 08, think about what you want to do differently…and better…in 2009. Create a clear and specific strategy for 09. Not just, “I want to sell more stuff,” but how much and what products. Then decide the best ways to do that. Read about marketing. See my “Holiday Presents for Home Business Owners” post over at HomeBizNotes for ideas. Plan now and get those planning strategies in motion. One tip: Don’t spend any more money on marketing until 2009, if you think you will have higher income from these strategies next year. Spend the money in the year of higher income to lower your business tax bill.

Making your time productive can be fun and you’ll be ready to start your business up full blast again on January 2.

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I had almost 160 entries, as of midnight last night. Before I announce the winner, here are the top movies mentioned:

A Christmas Story – 35

It’s a Wonderful Life – 21

National Lampoon’s Christmas Movie – 17

Miracle on 34th Street – 11

None of the other movies mentioned came close to those 4. Here are some of those others:

Contemporary Movies:

The Holiday (with Cameron Diaz)

Bad Santa

Polar Express

Home for the Holidays (with Holly Hunter)

The Ref (I guess I should watch this; I didn’t think it was a holiday movie)

One Magic Christmas

Scrooged (with Bill Murray) and Scrooge (the musical)

The Santa Clause (with Tim Allen) – 3 of them

Home Alone series

The Elf (Will Farrell)

Holiday Classics:

White Christmas and Holiday Inn (I get those two mixed up)

The Little Drummer Boy (animated? Hallmark version?)

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (I can still hear Gene Autry singing the title song)

How the Grinch Stole Christmas (I assumed some of you were talking about the animated version, although one person mentioned the Jim Carrey movie).

Bells of St. Mary’s

The Muppet Christmas Carol

Charlie Brown’s Christmas (remember the sad little tree?)

The Nutcracker Ballet

Emmet Otter’s Jug Band Christmas

The Christmas Shoes (I had not heard of this one)

Some Movies Not Usually Thought of as “Holiday” Movies, but that make sense when you think about it:

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

The Sound of Music

One big surprise – only one person selected A Christmas Carol. Kind of sad, that Charles Dickens’ classic, which has been remade in more versions than any other Christmas Story, is out of favor these days.

And, finally, a surprise entry that I had never heard of before: How Santa Conquered the Martians. I had to check because I figured the entry was made up. It is a real movie, from 1964. Check it out tomorrow on my special blog post.

I have contacted the winners. If they don’t respond within 24 hours, I’ll move on to the next name on the list.

Thanks for playing!

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