Journal Your Christmas Giveaway

Less is my favorite way to improve the holidays!

Last year we started simplifying at Christmas time. We told our boys that they would find just three gifts under the tree from Mom and Dad. We gave each boy a spiritual gift, a homemade gift and a "secular" or monetary gift. It worked very well and we plan on doing that for Christmases to come.
However, this year we are going to be out of town for Christmas for the first time ever, since the Christmas present this year is a special family vacation - this would be the monetary gift for this year. I plan on having the homemade gifts ready to give to everyone Christmas morning so I've got to get going on those ASAP. For the spiritual gift, we hope to arrange some service oriented opportunities for our family to make the vacation even more special.
Thanks for the opportunity to share.

I hope to relax and enjoy the season more this year. This is my first Christmas as a mom. I can't wait to enjoy it all and see what traditions become a part of my daughter's life beginning this year.

For the holiday season this year we are getting together will my husbands family. There is 10 siblings plus their families (heaps), all going to Hervey Bay 3 hours north of Brisbane and giving Mum a day off. It will be so good to catch up with the whole family. This will be our little girls first christmas with the whole of my husbands family. Christmas in Australia is so hot so it consists of lots of salads, prawns (shrimps in USA), cold beer and sunshine. Cannot wait for the season to begin. Thanks Ali for the opportunity don't know how it will go with me being in Australia but thought I would enter anyway. Lots of love and hugs to you and yours for the season.

I spent 6 weeks on bedrest so I had completed many projects while stuck on the couch...including my Daily December project. So I plan to continue with planning ahead so I can enjoy my Christmas season.

My gift giving - and the resultant shopping! - are being pared down this year. When our family drew names (at last year's celebration) it was decided to make / repurpose / recycle for gifts. So I'm creating and thinking of each person as the days go by.

Focus on the family, friends and sentiments... spending more time, less money... crafting more... put a little bit of myself on everything to give the word GIVING its real meaning ;)

I plan on making the December book, not buying the adults in our family gifts (we all agreed), and decorating early. Also, maybe we will get a real tree this year. I took pictures of our ornaments last year and will put them in a book

My husband and I are trying to cut back on the commercial side of Christmas. Thanks for the opportunity. http://www.adventconspiracy.org/

this year santa comes leaving only 1 present and our immediate family of 5 draws names for eachother... that's it....just lots of baking, music, and decorating...

I never really succeed with this, but I think it's a good idea to try and turn everything off as often as you can. Turning off the radio, computer, TV, music, people talking, phone, etc. and enjoy the silence. And eating less is also something that I found very helpful in making the time before Christmas comes more sincere and meaningful and enjoyable.
Carolin

We plan on staying home for most of the holidays and having family visit us. It gets to be too much trying to travel long distances with a 18 month old. Also, I plan to get most of the shopping done by the end of November or early December.

Every year I try to simplify,but I know that this will be no different! And in many good ways! We added a puppy to our family and a couple of trees! With that we have more family coming home than ever to help us celebrate. So with that I am going to be taking a lot more pictures and just enjoying it all. Because, after all, it does only come once a year!!

My plan is to stop and notice things...hoping participating in the Dec. Daily will accomplish it!

A more sane holiday--is there such a thing?? Seriously, our holidays are pretty low-key. We don't go all out. Just sit back, listen to music, bake some cookies, and read stories together. I love the interaction more with my family than the reaction to the events of the holiday. This class sounds like a great way to document all of the special interactions we have.

Christmas and the holiday season this year is an unknown for me. I just started a new job, so don't know if I will be able to take time off to visit family over seas as we usually do, My husbands Dad is not well, so we don't know if we will have to jet off to see him at short notice, and so there is no plan this year. Maybe a planner will help prompt me into the Christmas spirit.

Every year I say I am going to simplify and make this holiday be a little hectic, but it never happens! lol And I know this year it will not happen as well! We added a puppy, a couple of new trees to the line up and almost the whole family is coming home this year! So I am going to sit back and take a lot of pictures and hope by the middle of January that I am doing something with them! lol

First, thanks for the opportunity to win this!
This year we are simplifying the gift process. I am looking forward to that.
I plan to prepare and get as many gifts as possible before December 1.
This year I decided that I'm not making handmade Christmas cards. Instead I'm going to do a photo card.
I just love Christmas and am looking forward to season!

I have good head start because I'm 260+ days into Project 365. So capitalizing on photo opportunities and fairly well ingrained this year. Now if I can just create a sane holiday....

My parents are retired and winter in Ft. Myers Florida. They decided they are not going to come home for christmas and I decided that I am not going to worry about what my in-laws think and I am going to go ahead and take my family to Florida for Christmas.