February is a big birthday month here are our house, so I’m sharing a few tricks that help keep us organized around birthdays.

1. Birthday cards for my closest family aren’t really a problem because they don’t get a card. They get cake, special meals and other special treats instead.  I call it my green initiative, but really, I’m just lazy about cards. But long distance family is a different matter. My husband takes care of them. We simplified that some years ago with a perpetual birthday calendar. We simply add the special day in once, and never have to rewrite it again.  Of course, we can do the same thing with electronic calendars now, but sharing and syncing can mess things up, so this really is the more simple solution.

I found this cute calendar, similar to mine above, on Amazon, if you need to order your own.

2. Gift lists are a breeze now that I’ve got Evernote.  Whenever I see the perfect item, or my kid mentions that they want a certain toy for an upcoming holiday are birthday, I can mark it right away in my “Wish List” note, and refer to it in plenty of time for gift giving.

3. Party ideas. I still have little ones, so I’ve got the pressure to create an event each year, preferably theme related. I keep a folder of ideas that I pick up throughout the year. Many of our favorite places offer birthday parties, so I’ll stash those brochures away during the year and refer to them at crunch time. Our oldest’s birthday party was booked two months in advance this year, which felt like a huge load off of my mind!  (BTW, I highly recommend Elmwood Park Zoo parties for the little ones in the Philly area, or your local small zoo where you live.)

4. Thank you notes are becoming a lost art, but I still think it’s important to send them. I admit to not always being right on top of them, and have been known to send a thank you months after an event. But there’s never really a wrong time to say thank you, right? My secret is that I very rarely buy thank you notes, and instead I buy really pretty blank notes that I can use for almost anything.

5. I’ve mentioned another birthday tip before, but it’s still a favorite at our house. Instead of baking, eating, and having leftover birthday cake, we do birthday waffles instead. It’s fun to start out the morning as a family, with toaster waffles and whipped cream. The whipped cream helps the candles stand up straight, ya know. And there are no leftover cake bits to tempt me later!

There are probably as many ways to organize birthday celebrations as there are ways to celebrate.

I’d love to hear your birthday organizing tips in the comments below.