During the holiday season, costs for decorations, lights and presents can add up. But the FreePrintable.net Web sites are making sure that consumers have templates they can instantly and cheaply print for recipes, cards, letters, games, shopping, announcements and gifts throughout the holidays.

"These free and low-cost printables can help ease the stresses of the holidays," said Kevin Savetz, the sites' creator. "I'm especially happy with our letters from Santa, because those help create a little more magic for kids at Christmastime."

SantaPrintables.com provides letters from Santa that cover a wide range of topics, fears and circumstances. Children who have no chimney, who are religious, who have written to Santa before or who have asked for an inappropriate gift are all addressed in these colorful, fully-illustrated letters. There are even missives written from the perspective of the elves, reindeer and Mrs. Claus. In addition to the letters, SantaPrintables also features matching and memory printable games, greeting cards adorned with elves and reindeer, and even an Advent calendar.

SantaPrintables.com isn't the only place to get templates for newsletters, Christmas cards and flyer templates, either. FreePrintableGreetingCards.net has more than 40 Christmas cards decorated with nutcrackers, snowmen, wreaths and Christmas trees.

For people making specific announcements this year about a holiday bundle of joy, there is always PrintableBirthAnnouncements.net, which has Christmas birth announcements illustrated with cute gingerbread cookies and brightly wrapped presents.

FreeLetterheadTemplates.net has free letterhead templates for festive work memos and personal letters. They come with different styles of holiday art decorated as watermarks, while FreePrintableStationery.net has Christmas stationery with festive borders made up of Christmas bells and stockings. The stationery and letterheads print as lined or unlined templates.

For many people, making a big Christmas party or dinner can be a source of stress. "I like to think that with the right amount of organization, preparing a holiday meal can be made easier, and even fun," Savetz said. "And that's why I have a lot of printables for planning and arranging food."

The Christmas grocery lists and menu planners at FreePrintableGroceryList.com can help users plan out a meal and do more efficient shopping. There are Christmas recipe cards at FreePrintableRecipeCards.net featuring angels, ornaments and turkeys that add a festive air to holiday meals. For real baking fun, there is even a printable canning label with Santa and poinsettias at PrintableLabels.net.

As teachers and parents know, children love the holidays, and the FreePrintable.net sites have ways of encouraging kids' interest and enthusiasm. There are "Naughty," "Nice," and "Lump of Coal" Christmas certificates at FreePrintableCertificates.net that can reward or chastise behavior patterns (great for a gag gift for adults). There are also Christmas dot-to-dot pages at DotToDots.net, and more than 60 holiday coloring pagesat FreePrintableColoringPages.net. Teachers who are looking for activities aimed at older students can use the Christmas writing prompts at FreeWritingPrompts.net to cover fiction, nonfiction and essay topics.

Finally, there are several websites dedicated to party planning aids. PrintInvitations.net has a number of cute, silly, and colorful party invitations

The Christmas banners at PrintableBanners.net say "Merry Christmas" and "Seasons' Greetings" in red and green lettering. There are also more than 50

printable gift tags to choose from at FreePrintableGiftTags.net, all decorated with colorful pictures of treats, snowflakes, bells, decorations and more. These are perfect for gift exchanges and family gatherings.

All of the files available through the FreePrintable.net websites are free to download and print as PDFs or DOCs. In some cases, an editable DOC version can be purchased for a few dollars and edited in a compatible word processor such as Microsoft Word.

There are more than 80 sites in the FreePrintable.net family of free printables sites created by Savetz Publishing, Inc., a company devoted to creating useful and informative web sites of interest to consumers and small businesses.

Kevin Savetz

Portland, OR