My first Christmas Journal was made in 2005, and I’ve documented December in some fashion every year since. Last year I added the pages to my Project Life album, but this year I wanted to go back to a separate journal. I signed up for Ali Edward‘s class and it was all the inspiration I needed to get going again. I haven’t had time to watch all the videos, but I have everything in order to get this year’s journal completed. Every year I put out a basket with the old journals. Even without children at home, every Christmas season has its joys and events that make it somewhat different from the previous years. Some years I did a December Daily (Ali Edwards style), and some years I followed Shimelle’s Christmas Journal prompts. My intention is for a December Daily album this year, but I’m super relaxed about it, so if there’s nothing to photograph and nothing to write about, I’ll just move on.

Here’s a look at the basket of journals sitting under the window in our living room.

I haven’t done a lot to prepare, but I did decorate the cover of my Simple Stories 6X8 album.

I found the “Merry & Bright” wooden sign at Michaels and painted it gold with acrylic paint that came with Ashley G’s mini-kit from Ali Edwards. The colors in that kit are primarily black, white, gold, red, and green which really appealed to me. I picked up the black and gold Thickers (American Craft) in Chicago. The glitter tape came from Michaels as well.

I pulled all my supplies together ahead of time, and put them in two separate boxes:

And spray painted a few wood veneer die cuts.

I never have much luck with what Shimelle calls a Manifesto, and Ali calls an Intention page. It always seems a bit over the top, but this year I came up with a three word reason why I create a Christmas Journal.

Just recently (through Pinterest, I think) I found Azzari Jarret’s blog. I knew about her work as a designer for Paislee Press, but had never gotten as far as her blog. She had a December calendar as a free download which perfectly fits my album this year.

It might seem to be a strange way to start a Christmas Journal, but my first page documents the memorial service and celebration of life for my friend, Jim. Actually, it was the most beautiful service I’ve ever attended, and a wonderful celebration. He loved Irish music and craft beers, so the celebration was held at an Irish bar downtown and the Dady Brothers performed Irish music. Three of his daughters sang a song they wrote for their dad on his 75th birthday.

I’m keeping embellishments to a minimum this year and doing all my journaling on white cards I cut myself. The “remember” sticker is from Pink Paislee and the number cards are all from the Ashley G. kit.

I decided yesterday’s post for Pairs could be the basis of Day 2 and added two more photos of flowers around the house.

My plan is to complete each day’s page the next morning. So far that’s worked, but I know for a fact, it will be impossible to do this weekend. Too many early morning commitments! Nonetheless, it’s great to back to documenting the holiday.

This is a photo-heavy post, but I thought I ought to get the rest of the Christmas Journal posted. I finally finished it last night. This might be the first year I ended on December 25th, but given my current “to do” list, it seemed like the appropriate decision.

Documenting a couple of other Christmas paper crafting projects beyond the Christmas cards.

I don’t think I’ve ever copied an entire blog post for an album before, but I loved Rinda’s meme and decided to add it to the journal.

My original intent was to take photos of all the beautiful cards I received from around the world, many of which were hand-crafted. But I really wanted to use the stamps, and there were so many that I decided that would be the entry. For all of you who sent me beautiful cards and holiday greetings—THANK YOU. You have no idea how much I appreciate your talent, kindness, and friendship through this blog.

My annual page on the weather.

Matt’s first day home and a wonderful visit with Betsy and Skylar.

After setting the table for Christmas dinner (for 18 this year as it turned out), we go out to dinner on Christmas Eve. Matt decided to change clothes for the church service at 11:00. I wasn’t going to miss an opportunity to get his photo all dressed up.

The first page of six pages for Christmas. This is when I really appreciate the Simple Stories album. The lower right-hand pocket holds a transparency so you can see through it to the next page.

The end. Jessie and I took over 200 photos in six hours. I narrowed them down to about 100 which I posted on Smug Mug for the family. Once I had a photo of everyone at dinner, I decided I was done with the journal.

The last three days before we leave to drive Tracy’s mother’s van to Florida for her are jam-packed so I’m not sure if I’ll get any more posts up before then. (Although I do have an idea for Sian’s Story-telling Sunday. I’ve never participated with that before and would like to get it up.) I’m sure I’ll be checking your blogs while I’m away, but I’ll be reading them on my iPad and find commenting on it a bit of a trial. We’ll see how I do. 

I finished culling and editing all the photos from Christmas yesteday so now I can get busy and finish up the last few pages of this journal. If I get a good photo from our small gathering at friend’s for the New Year, I’ll add that too. Usually I get busy enjoying myself and totall forget to take any pictures. Here are the next pages of the Christmas Journal.

This year’s page about shopping, three-quarters or more was done online. The packages on the right were the ones I mailed to Oregon although many of those went directly from the company. Sarah wrapped Adam’s and he wrapped hers. 

This month’s Take Twelve layout. In the journaling I reflected on the two photography projects I took on this year:  Take Twelve and Capture Your 365. I’m not sure I’ll do Take Twelve again, but I’m definitely planning on continuing with Capture Your 365. I’ll still trying to decide how to document that in 2013. I’m not going to do the Ali Edward calendars again.

A three-page spread of photos of Betsy and Skylar who came to dinner that night.

This year’s entry on baking. Some topics do seem to get repeated because I have something new to say about them. I wasn’t sure I’d like this Starbuck cup cozy as a journaling spot but it worked out well.

The hardest thing about Christmas this year was being so far away from Caleb! Yesterday was his first birthday, and we did Face Time twice, once for the requisite cupcake, and one for opening presents. Here’s the card I sent him.

And one last photo for the folks who were so surprised to hear we had a snowblower. Almost everyone on our street owns one, although not everyone has a driveway as steep as ours. As you can see, the snow can only be put on the right side of the driveway because of the stone retaining wall. It’s not that we don’t also use a shovel, but we’ve never tried to do the driveway without the snow blower when we’ve had a big snow. It’s a pretty long endeavor, even then.

Have a Happy New Year, how ever you celebrate. I’m just as happy at home, but this year we’re going to some friend’s for a small gathering. I’ll be back with more Christmas Journal, but first with some thoughts about the New Year. 

Creating the pages for my Christmas Journal took quite a bit longer than I expected. I love the divided pages and options available by using the Simple Stories album, but it takes a lot of forethought so the pages all go together in the end. I’m very happy with how it’s turned out, but I did think I’d be posting pages as I went along. I still have Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and one other page I want to do. I’ll post a few pages each day until I’ve shared them all. Days 1-3 are here.  And the cover and prep pages are here.

I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do for the title page. Then I found this design on the Silhouette site and die cut the numbers with the Typewriter dies by Memory Box.

I don’t attempt to do a December Daily so you won’t find pages for each day in December. This spread is about this year’s Christmas cards and the family letter I sent to out-of-town friends.

The annual spread on Christmas decorations.

Last year I included a calendar and I loved having a record of all we did in December. I still need to finish writing in the activites since I took this photo.

My friend, Nancy, and I spent a lovely afternoon at two gallery shows and lunch out. This photo was taken at the Memorial Art Gallery in their atrium.

Hope you have a great weekend. We have a very quiet one here. I’m looking forward to some reading, purging, and learning new software!

Here’s a look at my 2012 Manifesto and the first three days. I am enjoying the Simple Stories album and think this might become a favorite for this kind of project.

The last few years, I’ve just used Shimelle’s Manifesto, or skipped it altogether, but this year I ended up using part of hers and adding some of my own journaling. (Oops, just caught a typo/grammar error in the Manifesto, so I’ll be reprinting that. I know I proofread it once, but obviously not carefully enough!)

This is the third year in a row Tracy and I have gotten a pre-cut tree. This year’s is really lovely, but the process just isn’t as much fun as it used to be. Some of my all-time favorite photos of my kids were taken on our annual Christmas tree hunt.

Tracy and I lit the first Advent candle in chapel on Sunday. I printed the text from the bulletin on vellum and decided that was all the journaling this page needed. I’m not sure about the Washi tape, but it does a good job of keeping the vellum in place.

This was the day I did the Festive Photo Walk for Cheryl Johnson’s Twelve Days of Christmas class. I really like these 3 X 4 photo slots. I’m not sure whether I’ll add two more 4X6 photos to the back of this last page, or whether I’ll use those spots for December 4’s page. (Still thinking about that one.) Typically, I’m not all that happy when I do a lot of prep work for a project, but this year it seems to be working out just fine.

Normally I wouldn’t subject you to ten scrapbook pages in one post, but I really did want to do 10 on the 10th this year, and I have finished my Christmas Journal and there were exactly 10 pages to share. You can find more 10 on the 10th at Shimelle’s blog.

Years ago, we added a new ornament to our collection every year. For many years, we added one from our travels. Once we had more ornaments than our tree could hold, we stopped buying new ones. But this year, I bought two beautiful new glass ornaments, one from Denver, CO and one from Ashland, OR. They’ll remind me of the year both of my kids made big moves.

This year my gifts are under three trees:  one here, one in Oregon, and one TV tree in Denver. When Matt received some boxes a few days ago, he called to see which ones were safe to open. Only one of three in which I had sent some wrapped gifts for him to open Christmas Day. 

 Knowing full-well he hadn’t any intention to buy a tree, I said, “Put them under the TV and pretend it’s a tree.” 

 “That’s the plan,” he responded.

 I’ll miss my kids on Christmas morning. This is the first year in 31 years that neither one will be here on Christmas Day. But it will still be festive, as nearly 20 of us will gather here at 4:00 for Christmas dinner.  And I only had to send a few of Matt’s gifts as he’ll be here for a long weekend in early January.

I love to make tags and wrap gifts. This year I had fun making some tags for specific gifts and people. I don’t always find the time to be as creative as I’d like during the holiday season, but it certainly is fun when I do.

Having seen Sarah and Adam in November, and knowing I would see them again as well as Matt in January, I didn’t expect to feel particularly sad at Christmas. But Tracy figured out how to stream our Christmas music through Apple TV and added lots of Christmas photos from past years as a screen saver. I was done in when this one showed up on Christmas Eve. I really do miss my kids at the holidays! 

The first page of a two-page spread.

The Walker Family Christmas is always lots of fun, but this year it seemed even more laughter-filled and joyous than usual. We visited, sang, saw interpretative dance, ate, ate some more, opened gifts (more laughter and fun), and simply enjoyed one another. The only way it could have been better was to have Marc (who had to work), Sarah, Adam, Betsy, Skylar, and Matt with us.

I’ve ordered a pile of prints from Christmas which should arrive today (after we leave for the airport). They’ll go in these pages:

Despite a gorgeous new kitchen, I just wasn’t interested in making tons of Christmas cookies this year. It broke a 40+ year tradition, and in the end, both Tracy and I were sorry about it. We did, however, have cupcakes! I made three kinds: carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, chocolate with peanut butter frosting, and our favorite:  gingerbread with lemon frosting. No one in the family seemed terribly disappointed, but I especially missed not having goodies to give to our neighbors. 

I didn’t journal for this page, I know I’ll have lots of baby pages in the near future and I thought “Best Gift” said it all.

Matt was home for the weekend, and I took tons of photos. This is one of my favorites. Skylar is so attentive now, and she is staring at her Aunt Sarah in Oregon on the iPad. I love how much easier it is to stay in touch with Face Time. We visit with Caleb, Sarah, and Adam almost every day. 

Matt left today, and that signals the end of the holiday for me. We’ve been blessed beyond measure again this year by family, friends, and good health. On our way home from the airport, we stopped to see the night lights at the Lamberton Conservatory. I was glad we hadn’t missed it after all.

Thanks for sticking with me through a lot of pages. I always enjoy this project, and every year I’m so glad I’ve made the time for it. We’re off to Oregon later today, so I’ll be checking in with your posts, but probably not commenting as often. Babies to hold, you know!!!