5 Ways to Simplify the Holidays with Paperform

It’s the most wonderful time of the year. Whether you're warming your hands around a cup of hot cocoa or soaking up some rays at the beach, the air is filled with holiday spirit. Faces are bright, hearts are full, and you're ready to crush this holiday season.

You’ve strung up the lights. You’ve put a ceramic snowman on every end table in the house. You’ve got everything for everyone on your list, even your impossible Uncle Greg who’s decided to join you last minute with his new girlfriend you’ve never met. You got something for Greg’s girlfriend, right?

Right?

Well, maybe your kids can make something. They’re home from school and I’m sure they’d appreciate a fun, time-consuming craft that definitely won't leave your dining room table covered in glue... You’ll be fine!

Alright, so maybe the most wonderful time of the year can be a little stressful. And as the festivities get closer, your to-do list, like the Grinch’s heart, just keeps growing. But before you go full Scrooge, put the crafting supplies down and grab your laptop. You can use Paperform to simplify your holiday worries.

5 ways to simplify the holidays with Paperform

Whether you’re organizing a Secret Santa, starting a business, or just trying to figure out what your teenage nephews even like these days, Paperform can help you lose the fear and find some cheer.

Here are just a few ways to use Paperform to save you from holiday headaches.

1. Make a holiday gifting questionnaire

One of the most magical (read: stressful) parts of the holiday season is picking out the perfect gift for everyone on your list. Especially when you’re shopping for teens or young adults, it’s hard to keep up with everyone’s changing preferences. And shoe sizes.

So while Santa might make a list, you may be better off with a form. With Paperform’s 20+ distinct field options, you can get all the information you need to pick out the perfect present for even the pickiest people on your list.

You could include a multiple choice question where respondents select what kind of gifts they tend to like from a list of categories. That way you don’t get another book for someone who really prefers clothes or tech gadgets. Or, you could use scale questions to survey folks about how important it is to them that their gift is sustainable, or from a small business.

With Paperform’s customisation options, you can drag and drop your questions wherever you like, display them one at a time with Guided Mode, or fill your form with fun images, GIFs, and videos so that completing your holiday questionnaire is fun and easy. A real win-win.

2. Organize a food or gift drive

The holidays are a great time to give back. Organizing a food or gift drive is an excellent way to support your local community, give to those in need, and bring your friends and family together in the process. Rather than sending out loads of emails, or worse—creating a group text—you can organize your food or gift drive easily with Paperform.

Let’s say you’re going door to door to gather canned food for the food bank, and wrapped gifts for the homeless shelter. You could send out a donation form to your friends and neighbours asking them what they’d like to donate, where you should pick up the goods, and what time everything will be ready.

Once you get all your info, all you have to do is load up in the car and turn up the carols. Paperform makes it easy to gather people toward a charitable cause, so you can focus your energy on spreading the holiday spirit.

3. Plan the perfect holiday meal

There are few things better than gathering around a home-cooked meal at the end of a big day of opening presents... unless you’re the one who has to make it. Things get complicated when you have to plan a dinner that works for vegans, picky kids, and paleo eaters alike.

With Paperform, you can send out a quick and easy survey to gather all the dietary information you need, so you can avoid any dinner-time meltdowns. Better yet, you can share the load by making your holiday meal a potluck.

Organizing a potluck the old-fashioned way can be more trouble than it’s worth. You might end up bogged down in email chains, games of phone tag, or tracking down the lists of appetisers you’ve sprawled in notebooks all over the house. But with Paperform, it’s a breeze. Simply send out your potluck invitation, and let your friends and family tell you what they can bring.

You can even narrow down the dishes by having your respondents select from a pre-approved set of options in a multiple choice question. That way, you decide what you’d like to cook, and enlist help for everything else. Plus, you won’t end up with five sides of cranberry sauce you don’t know what to do with.

Your form can also double as an RSVP, so you know exactly how many plates to set at the table.

4. Organize a Secret Santa gift exchange

If you’ve ever had to organize a Secret Santa, you know how complicated it can be. Making sure there are no double pairings, that couples don’t get paired with each other, and most importantly—that no one gets left out on the big day—is a full-time job.

Luckily, the days of picking names out of a hat are over. We've got a Secret Santa Gift Exchange form you can use to organize and execute a seamless gift exchange: you can customise it to your liking, change the theme or background images, and add any questions you might need.

For both the questionnaire and your Secret Santa, once you’re happy with your form, you can program it to automatically transfer the information to a Google Sheet, where you can randomly assign members to one another. If the Sheet part fills you with dread, check out the tutorial above for a guided walkthrough.

5. Make and sell your own Christmas hampers

The holidays can be a whirlwind for business owners, too. If you’re a crafter, a baker, or an artist, making gift baskets for the holidays can be lucrative business. Plus, buying Christmas hampers is a great way to support small businesses and bring a whole lot of holiday cheer to your loved ones.

We've also got a Christmas Hamper template that you can customise to match your style and brand. You could embed the form into your pre-existing website, or use Paperform to create your own one-page website for your business from scratch.

With our native integration with Adobe Creative Cloud, you can also import your brands logos and images right into the order form without leaving the site. Adding payment and coupon fields, managing inventory, and confirming shipment orders can all be done in just a few clicks.

You can even set up automated email replies to your customers to thank them by name (using answer piping) and wish them a happy holidays in your own words.

Go forth and make holiday magic

Whether you’re making questionnaires, gathering donations, or throwing a great party, Paperform is here to help you make your holidays a little less stressful, and a little more fun.

The ideas in this article are just a few to get your wheels turning. There's countless more. With a tool this powerful, versatile, and easy to use, you can create a solution for any of your needs—festive or otherwise. And with our tutorials, YouTube videos and live support, we're always here to help you with anything you need.

Well, we’re around to help with the forms. You might need to pour the mulled wine yourself.