Journal Your Christmas Giveaway

I plan on doing most of my shopping online this year and to try to take time each day to be "in the moment."

One thing that we are doing that will help make our holidays much more sane is, all the adults are exchanging names for gifts instead of everyone buying for everyone. The other thing that makes things so much easier for us is, my husbands family comes over on Christmas Eve, we celebrate at our home on Christmas morning, then go to celebrate with my family later in the day. Next year, we switch! (And the family that celebrates with us on Christmas Eve gets to have us on Thanksgiving.) We see everyone without trying to do it all in one day!

Life is a work in progress. Baby steps are needed to achieve even the smallest of goals with limited stress. Since my daughter's recovery from Leukemia, i have learned to just STOP. Stop and take a deep breath. Stop and take it all in. Stop and make the world around me mean something more than just what it is. This is a work in progress. I am a huge follower of Shimelle's blog and have contemplated to purchase the journal this year....I hope win!!!

To create a more sane Holiday season this year we have added and changed a few things.
We have a large family, 6 kids. We have always encouraged a family gift vrs. an individual one for each child. This is hard for family and close friends to abide by. So, we have decided to do the good ol' name drawing. We have also incorporated a spending limit. This keeps it simple and on the less expensive side.
We are also doing A LOT more homemade gifts. We (the kids also, with direction)are trying to create crafts that are personable and or useful to the reciever and baked goods. This makes for a more thoughtful gift. We started jotting down ideas last Christmas.
We have a family christmas party every year for our close friends. It has grown every year as we are blessed with new family friends. This can cause for a greater expense for the party. We have turned it into a potluck stle party, asking everyone to bring a dish to share with at least 10 people. Decorations are part of the party games early on, with everyone bringing some. We also have everyone bring a family favorite game. I make the invites. It is one of the highlights of the Christmas season.
Paper products!!! We go to grandma's house for Christmas. It can get quite crowded. When it is proper we do paper products. We use them for desserts and snacks and drinks. However, during dinner there is a formal table set. (Don't fret:))
Another one we have recently added- Sleeping over Gma's . Saves on gas and travel stress.

Ali, thanks for all you do. I finished BPS' Cut the Crazy out of Christmas and have my binder ready! Loving the Yesterday/Today class and the call back to my roots of scrapping - photos + words. I am doing December Daily for the first time this year and am embracing all chances to remember and tell. I'm even learning a little PSE along the way! :) Thank you!
pennyscraps

I am so excited for the holidays this year. My mom just moved here from England and it will be our first Christmas with her in a long time! And she moved to Florida, and we live in Wisconsin! Sun for the holidays:) Anyway, I just hope all our travels go well and we arrive in Florida safe and back again safe!

Such an adorable album!
The best way I can make the holidays sane for me is to do most of the shopping & holiday card making *before* December hits. All of our family lives out of town so I have to get my shopping done early anyway. And if I can avoid the post office during the month of December I'm a much happier person. That way when when the holidays roll around I can spend my time doing the fun and less stressful stuff like decorating, making cookies and spending time with my family & friends.

I have spent two years following your Dec Daily. THIS year I have been telling myself that perhaps it would be a way to be present. To NOT ignore that it is coming. To celebrate. To reflect. To wish. That idea combined with the prompts to get me going. . .sounds like something I might be able to accomplish.

This season is about remembering and savouring. We realize how precious life is and remembering what christmas is about. We will celebrate lives, remember those no longer with us and talk about the little baby that started this season!

This class looks amazing...my goal is to focus on all the positive things that happen. My son has asperger's and we have an "attikid" book where we only track the positive things that happen that day and right before we go to bed we read it with him...this has helped so much and I am hoping that my first ever December daily album will be that kind of positive experience for my whole family!

I'm going to make a finite list of expectations -- decorate the tree, ride the Pink Pig at Macy's, etc. -- and focus on doing those things. Then, anything else that might come along is gravy, but no pressure to do absolutely everything that the season can contain.

This year, instead of getting caught up in what I'm unable to do, I'm going to enjoy spending time with my family.

This year, I plan to be more organized at Christmas - keeping track of receipts for the gifts I buy, putting up the decorations early, etc. And, plenty of REST!

Wow, I would LOVE to do this class. I do try to do as much before December even starts as I can so that I can really enjoy the holidays. Sounds simple but it really takes a lot of discipline to make it happen.

This year I hope to be more organized - from keeping better track of receipts of the gifts I buy, decorating early, and getting plenty of REST!

To be honest last year we made our first "Advent Scrapbook" where daily we made a page together. I had a basket of blank pages & supplies & sometimes we worked on one page together & sometimes is was the kids drawing or journaling about their day & it so made the season more meaningful because we "check-in" with a purpose every evening, we will surely do that again this year.
We love doing our Advent calendar before school each morning & as often as possible eating dinner by the glow our of Advent Wreath's candles. Bliss :)

Ohhh! I just love it!! Since this will be our FIRST Christmas in Austin, TX (big smile!) I am really hoping to carve out time during the day while my three kiddos are in school to get my Christmas gifts done, bake our favorite things and do a Daily December album (and get caught up on last years!). I plan on being more "go with the flow" and doing much less stress! Saying no to commitments & yes to more family things.
This is so very cool! Thanks :)
Jessica

I plan to have all my shopping done by the 1st of December and then do crafts and have outings with the kids. I also want to bake a lot this year. I want my boys to have memories of doing things with me in the kitchen around the holidays. Thanks!
Krystal
New Mexico

This year, since we have little money, but lots of time (unemployment really stinks) we are making a good chunk of our gifts for family. I've chosen to work on a project a week, instead of trying to do them all at once!

Instead of all of the traditional photos, I want to focus more on the feeling of the Christmas season and how we celebrate as a family.
Love the December Daily - maybe this will be the year I create my own:)