We’re all in this Sandwich Generation together, right? So we can be honest with each other, right? Raise your hands if you were so busy taking care of grandkids, that you forgot to send Aunt Ethel a birthday card. Raise your hands if you were tied up at the hospital with your elderly dad and didn’t get that birthday present off to your son. Raise your hands if you woke up on Christmas morning and realized you’d been so busy running grandkids to a therapy appointment, aging parents to a dentist appointment and helping both with THEIR holiday shopping that you never got cards out and you still haven’t finished shopping for a couple of people. OK, I admit it, I’ve probably done all of those things and more! Fortunately, most  of my family and friends never knew and if you don’t tell on me, they never will. (Well, 3 of my sweet ones will, but they all know how much I love them and are ever so patient with me )

Why do most of my beloveds not know how behind I sometimes get? The power of E! E-cards, E-gifts, E-gift certificates! The power of E is a wonderful thing for busy Sandwich Generation caregivers and grandparents.

For last minute, day-of gifts, I have three great tools! As I’ve already written Amazon.com Gift Cardsare some of my favorite “secret weapons.” I just head over to Amazon, select the online greeting card of my choosing, and the amount I want to send, and voila, they will have their online gift certificate the same day. I even have a couple of special people who I like to try to surprise once in a while, so I will purposely wait til the “day of” to send the egreeting.

Another of my favorites is making Smilebox Photo Memory Books (or as many call them, Photo Scrapbooks) and Photo Email Cards. Once I start going through photos I have so much fun, I find it hard to quit!

Today, I just discovered that, even though my favorite e-card site was no longer available, I have a great new option, Dayspring! Yup, the same company that makes the lovely cards you can find in many places, including your local Christian gift and book store, has a website with free Christian e-cards (free is always my favorite money saver). So next time you are running behind, because caregiving duties are keeping you busy, you can send an ecard that will get there the same day! By the way, they have several other interesting items there as well, including:

• Several movie/videos of music, scenery, and Bible verses that you can send to a tech savvy senior citizen or download as a free screensaver
• Some fun and free little e-games for you and the grandkids to have fun with.
• An online store

All of these sites are great resources for the Sandwich Generation, and now you have them all in one place. It’s our own personal gift and greeting center, just waiting for the next birthday or holiday to come along! Now, when you are in the throes of providing elderly assistance to your mom and babysitting for your grandkids, you can also stay on top of giving, and even include them in the fun!