Best Wishes for a Lovely New Year to Come!
Stay safe and warm, from Susan and Tom
I love calendars. I enjoy moments of trading out old for new calendars at the beginning of a new year. I don’t doubt there are others like me who savor the anticipation of another twelve months of rotating wall art. I don’t browse ahead in the year to come. I let myself discover the new image as I turn each page every month.
But at the end of the year, there’s the bittersweet quality of saying goodbye to the enticing, beautiful, and inspiring images that been a part of my days through the previous year. However, the calendars I’ve particularly enjoyed I do hold on to and stash in my “calendar archive” suitcase. For instance, the “Enchanted Realm” calendar (above, center) was an art calendar I enjoyed in 1979, the year I graduated high school, and is the oldest I’ve saved.
A few years back I wondered if the starting and ending days and dates of the different years ever repeat. For instance, could I ever re-use calendars I had saved for another year’s wall calendar? And yes, you can! Maybe you already knew this?
A quick Google search and I found that it wasn’t just me, other people save old calendars as well. There are websites dedicated to this! Here are the two calendar re-use websites I’ve visited: whencanireusethiscalendar.com and timeanddate.com/calendar/repeating. Very easy to use and also to learn interesting trivia—like how leap-years throw off any sort of (understandable) pattern in how the years and particular days repeat… and did you know that every 100 years a leap year is skipped (though there’s an exception)?
Anyway, going to those sites, I found that a past calendar that (for instance) can be re-usable in 2026, with beginning and ending days of the week matching, are the years of 1970, 1981, 1987, 1998, 2009, and 2015. There are more years but for this purpose I only wrote down ones that I might have in my archive.
This year, because of thinking more about this post, I delved deeper into the suitcase, and looked closer at what I had collected. There were 38 calendars (pre-2025)—15 from the 1900’s and 23 from the 2000’s. The weight of the suitcase is about 25 pounds.
There’s also a variety of repeating art related themes in my calendar archive: fiber art, Indigenous art, paintings, photography, and other images I’ve been attracted to over the past 47 years. I picked out a few for the calendar patchwork, below.
Turns out I had four calendars (below) in my archive—all from different years—that can be re-used in 2026. More than I usually find. They even look good together—like one of those color schemes for the new year—orange and blue—complementary colors. Here’s to that being a good omen for 2026.
And that’s that—a little bit of appreciating the past in the new year to come. The remaining 34 archived calendars (along with our five? 2025 calendars) will get tucked into the suitcase, to open again at the end of the year.
The “Changing of the (re-use) Calendars” occurs on New Year’s Day (before and after photos from my studio, below).
I’ll leave you with a couple favorite calendars (one to re-use in 2028 and the other in 2034). If you don’t know of Wallace & Gromit, maybe you’d enjoy checking them out. Going through my calendars, I was reminded of these characters and their stories from the amazing stop-motion films by creator Nick Parks. We’ve now planned a New Year’s Eve Wallace & Gromit Movie Marathon—a “smashing” good way to start off 2026 (“Cheeeese, Gromit!”).
And as particular interest to us, the lobster wharf that Tom’s grandfather built (just down the road) in the 1960’s, made the cover photo for the Down East 2017 Maine Calendar. Cool. Only eight years to re-use.
Cheers!—from Harpswell, Maine
I love calendars too and I save mine every year. Impossible to reuse though with all of the notes and appointments filling the squares. And like you I never look ahead, preferring to be surprised each new month when I turn the page. My favorite for the last few years has art by Debi Hron and is called Simply Grateful. When I hung it this morning, the inscription by Hafiz says, “I wish I could show you when you are lonely and in darkness . . . the Astonishing Light of your own being”
Happy New Year, Susan and Tom, and thank you for your blog!
Cheers!
Cheers to you too, Lizzie! What a lovely quote to begin the year with – it has stayed with me the past few weeks. Thanks for sharing.
Happy new Year Susan and Tom!
I, too, keep my calendars year after year not to reuse, but rather because they are a compilation of what happened that year. They become a journal of important dates and accomplishments. I especially love to revisit the ones when my children were little and be reminded of the joy and innocence a child brings into your life.
Let’s hope 2026 is filled with lots of joy for all of us. And fabric too!
Hi Sylvie! I love your calendar thoughts and memories. I’m re-using one from 1981 for this year. It obviously was one that hung in the kitchen of the house I grew up in and had notes of trips and meetings and events for all four of us in my family, in their handwriting. That calendar is hanging up but won’t be written on any more.
Happy New Year, Susan and Tom!!! I am now going on a calendar search. Thank you for the great idea!!! Wishing you many blessings in 2026!!!
Hi Karen! Belated New Year’s wishes to you and yours – hope the calendar search was fruitful!
Happy New Year Susan and Tom!
I very much enjoyed this post. When I was working, my husband would give me a Monet calendar every year for Christmas. After I retired, he stopped. Until last week! I was so happy to receive a new Monet calendar this year for Christmas. It will hang in my sewing room.
Hi Bonnie! So nice to hear from you! Nice to hear Monet will be your Muse — good choice! Have a great year full of art!
What a great idea! I, too, have saved old calendars for inspiration but I never thought about reusing them. As I find myself without a calendar for 2026, I’m heading to my pile to see if one will work. Thanks and Happy New Year!
Thanks Cathy! Hope you find a favorite—and Happy New Year 🙂