Lists & Stockings

Yesterday I was a bit overwhelmed by what I had left to do but managed to plow through most of the things. Now just the fun stuff on the "to do" list is left - like stuffing the stockings!

Products Used: Wild Asparagus & Figgy Pudding papers; Bazille cardstock; MM jumbo pebble brads; MM tag; MM rubon letters.

Crunch Time!

Today is Cookie Baking Day so not much time. I managed to get yesterday's JYC entry done. It was the motivation I needed to turn the scrap room into the guest room just in time!

I tried to keep to Shimelle's suggestions of not always using red & green color combos but I had a little bit sneak in there. OK off to bake . . .

Surprise

The journal promt for yesterday's Shimelle class is whether or not you have received anything surprising in the mail this year (or as she says "the post" - love that). Mine was a pretty uneventful bunch of deliveries from the mail lady until a Christmas card arrived earlier in the week from one of Mark's cousins in Wisconsin.

Journaling reads:

So far no surprise packages this year however, both Mark and were SHOCKED at a Christmas card we received. Kurt and Sharron are cousins of Mark’s from Wisconsin that have visited us here in San Diego as well as us visiting them. Most recently we saw them in 2005 when we stayed with them at Lake Winnabago for 3 days in August. Their Christmas card and newsy letter arrived last week to say that they had been not once but twice to san Diego in 2007 and never called us even once. We’re trying to figure out if we are in the doghouse with them or maybe we just have B.O.

Just for you Dawn!

I can't believe I'm putting the journaling here for my Santa letter but Dawn says she can't read it. Hopefully Santa has so many he won't get to mine right away! :) Having fun "pretending" to be the bad girl!
Dear Santa,
I have been a really super good girl.
It really wasn't my fault what happened at the office Christmas party. It was Richie who spiked the punch with too much Bourbon. I can't help it if I drank 7 glasses. It was so good---smelled and tasted just like vanilla.
I thought it was funny when I put Merridy's sweater on my head and danced the chicken dance on the table while singing `Santa Claus Is Coming to Town'. I didn't mean to break Noli's iPod and don't know why Lisa would sue me for assault & battery.
I don't remember calling George's wife an extraordinary sheep---even though she looked like one with pink eye shadow and yellow lipstick!
And when I threw up on Tamara's husband's fanny, it was only because I ate too much of that lasagna.
After all that fun, I admit I was a little tired. So I fell asleep on my way home and drove my Jetta through my neighbor's bathroom. I don't think that was any reason for my neighbor to call me a phenomenal skunk and have me arrested for breaking and entering!
So, Santa...here I sit in my jail cell on Christmas Eve, all spectacular and catastrophic. And I'm really not to blame for any of this gargantuan stuff. Please bring me what I want the most---bail money!
Sincerely and lovingly yours,Gaye (Really a nice girl!)
P.S. It's only $2700 bucks!

Dear Santa - I've Been Good . . .Honest!

OK I saw this link for a make your own Santa letter from a participant on Shimelle's website. http://www.wtv-zone.com/LadyBoheme/dearsanta.html I was cracking up at all the different possibilities that one could create. Here's mine - sounds like a night after a few drinks with the drunken matador at Sam Diego's with the Cape Girls! Also, my mom just recently found this old photo of me with Santa (circa 1962). The expression on my face fits pretty well with the letter, don't you think?

Products Used: Daisyd's paper & tag; MM word fetti & metal tag.

Christmas Foods

Tomorrow is the BIG shopping day. I better make my list and check it twice today!

The Perfect Gift

I love when I get just the right gift for someone. This year that someone is my nephew Brian. I can't wait until he gets this package. He's got a few things to curl up and read now!

What I Am Grateful For

Good Friends
Receiving Cards
A Superb Husband
Two great kids
Everyone Home
Few Days Off
Understanding Boss
Loving Family

Don't ask about products ued - it was "clean out the sticker letter drawer" day!

Christmas Visitors

I love having guests anytime but especially at the holidays. I'm quite different from others I know who prefer having only family. I, on the other hand like to include any wayward souls who might not have a place for Christmas or might not want to spend Christmas with their family. Over the years I've had distant cousins, friends and occasionally folks away from their families. This year it will be my mom, possibly a few cousins and friends that are on the "outs" currently with their families. The more the merrier in my book!

Products Used: Old paper from Michael's from at least 4 years ago; Bazille Christmas stickers; MM tag; Bazille cardstock

Playing Catch Up!

Wow! I was doing so good there for the first week or two but it's now been a week since I've posted anything to the blog. Fortunately I have not been doing anything but having fun with the family and enjoying the season, including letting a few days go by without doing my JYC pages. Last night I put the space heater in the scrap room, got it all toasty and popped "Elf" into the DVD player so I could play with my paper an glue and get caught up. Man, I am having so much fun with this!


I LOVE Christmas carols. As soon as Thanksgiving is over I’m in the mood to hear them 24/7. I love them all. This year I have an iTunes Christmas playlist at work and home plus I have the car radio tuned to the “All Christmas Carols” station. Nothing is better than toodiling down the road with the Christmas tunes cranked up and singing at the top of my lungs! It’s the most WONDERFUL time of the year!

Products Used: KI letters; Bazille cardstock; Michael's Holiday rubons; misc leftover sticker and rubon letters.

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Presents!

The JYC prompt today is all about how presents are handled in our house on Christmas. We have our definite traditions here at the Larsen House!

Products Used: Design Originals paper; Figgy Pudding paper; MM tag.

Journaling Reads:

Christmas morning definitely has it’s specific traditions at the Larsen house. Gone are the days of getting up at the crack of dawn (thankfully) but we still revel in the hoopla of the morning. We start out with the stockings at the fireplace. After the stockings we have a big breakfast and then move into the living room where all the presents are sitting under the tree. We’ve never had any definite assignments for someone to hand out presents – usually whoever sits closest to the tree and is willing to get up and carry presents from the tree to the recipient. Everyone opens one at a time and waits for everyone else to finish before the next one starts. We usually have a contest for who can have the biggest pile in front of them without opening them. I guess that’s because we all secretly like having the spotlight on ourselves so we like being the last to have gifts to open so everyone is looking our way.

Tales of the Past!

The latest prompt I have done for Shimelle's JYC is all about Christmas Past. I have so many great memories of Christmas' past that it's almost impossible for me to pick just one. I came across the old black & white photo on this layout a month or so ago and it reminded me of how much fun these Gibson gatherings used to be. This truly is a by gone era for me - but oh what memories!




Products Used: Bazille cardstock; Figgy Pudding paper; Daisy D rubon; MM tag & brad.

Journaling reads:

One of my favorite events from Christmas’ past was the annual Gibson Christmas Party. Each year one family hosted and the party was always held the Sunday before Christmas and all 5 of the Gibson siblings and their families were expected to attend. This party was at my house in Lancaster most likely in 1958, the first year my parents lived in the house on H-12. I was the baby of the group and obviously very excited about the new baby doll I found under the tree. As the years went on and the siblings passed away the cousins weren’t good about keeping this annual event going. I hope to one day hold this party again so the next generation can have the experience.

The Real Thing!

Today's JYC entry is all about my Christmas tree. I absolutely love ours.

Products Used: Figgy Pudding paper; Bazille cardstocl; Basic Grey punch out letters; misc. letter stickers.

Journaling:

No matter how much things get out of hand cost wise or how crazy life can get around the holidays, for me it isn’t truly Christmas without a real Christmas tree. There is just nothing to compare to that terrific smell of pine when you come home. I miss the days when the four of us would go hunt for the perfect tree at the “cut your own” tree lot. Ever since our favorite family run tree was lost in the 2003 Cedar fire we have been going to wherever was closest to home with the best deal. Our tree is also smaller these days as we take advantage of the table we have already in the living room to act as our holder for the tree. We’ve had everything from all white lights, multi-colored lights and even a few years when we had lights that blinked to the tune of Christmas carols! This year Laura asked Mark to put our old fashioned big multi-colored lights on.

Whew! Catching Up Is Hard To Do!

Man, I was 3 days behind on my Shimelle journal and rapidly falling farther behind. Good thing there was a good episode of "House" on last night I hadn't seen plus a strong latte I had earlier in the afternoon. Managed to get all the entries done up through yesterday. Not really a chore though because I'm so enjoying this project. Now if I could just figure out what I want to do for the cover!

So first up is Saturday's entry which was all about the sights in our house. I'm not all that pleased with this entry mostly because I got the title for it confused with Sunday's entry so I have the word "traditions" in both titles. This one is really all about what's out in our home that's different from the rest of the year. The little index prints are a bit hard to see but I wanted to include as many sights as I could.

Products Used: Scenic Route paper; Maya Road Alphas; Bazille cardstock & MM tag.

Some of the sights at our house include:

• “Fragile” Leg bobblehead from Christmas Story



• Wooden Santa collection on top of Entertainment Center
  Elf Family that lives in our Family Room for the Holidays



• Christmas Village, especially all the figures we’ve given names to like Jamie and Mr. Jope that reminds us of trips in the past to collect mistletoe



• Bedford Falls – how much it makes me love “It’s A Wonderful Life”!



• Peppermint Candy Canes



• The Santa Countdown calendar



• All of the Norwegian Christmas plates up on the wall not just 1978



• Christmas cups out and ready for hot chocolate

The entry for Sunday is all about one of my most favorite traditions at our house

Christmas Movie Night

Right now we have this scheduled for this coming Sunday night. All four of us look forward to this every year. I'd like to think it's because it's our own family tradition that just the four of us share together. The page construction was simple - just Bazille card stock; a small bit of Figgy Pudding paper; an MM tag and a title printed on a transparency. The journaling reads:

One of the most time honored and favorite Larsen family traditions is our Christmas Family Movie Night. Over the years we have watched “It’s A Wonderful Life”, “Miracle on 34th St.”. “White Christmas”, “A Christmas Story”, “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation”, “Elf”, “Scrooged”, “Mixed Nuts”, “Home for the Holidays”, “All I Want for Christmas” and others. We love them all but our absolute favorites are “A Christmas Story” and “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation”. We have our own copies of these and we faithfully every year are home by a roaring fire with popcorn, peppermint candy and hot chocolate just us four Larsens and our favorite Christmas movies. Such fun!

And, finally yesterday's entry was all about our gift wrapping plans for 2007. I just chuckled that Shimelle would have thought I was this far ahead to be thinking of gift wrap. Fortunately I hit the Target sale after Christmas last year so the supply is definitely here. All I need to do now is just get the darn shopping done so I have gifts to wrap! Other than wrapping paper and ribbon from my gift wrap stash the only other products I used were some American Crafts jumbo letter stickers and some small random letter stickers left from an old CK card kit.

Would love to put my feet up and relax but today is another day which means another entry. Off to check what's in store for today and hopefully I can post the results before the end of today!

Organized - Ha! Who Am I Kidding?

OK so my guests for my party tomorrow night might have nothing to eat and have to look at my pig sty house but at least my journal entry is done for today. And who said I didn’t have my priorities straight? OK off the computer now I promise!

Products Used: Bazzile Cardstock; MM tag and a boatload of miscellaneous letter stickers I needed to use up!

2 for 1 Day!

As I said in yesterday's post I am starting to feel overwhelmed by the Christmas preparations and am falling behind in my JYC entries. Last night I managed to catch up on my two entries as well as finish my Christmas cards! I know the pressure is what we put on ourselves but why oh why can I not be happy to just be in the spirit rather than feeling like I have to do it all? I am definitely going to have to work on this more this upcoming week.

So here's the entry for Dec. 5th. It's all about Advent calendars - something I love. The two tiny photos are of the two Advent calendars we currently have at the Larsen house. I just looked at the one Andrew likes to do and notice that he is about 3 days behind. That was so not his style when he was little. He never understood why you couldn't just pull out the days you wanted. The journaling reads:
When I was about 6 years old my sister Colleen made me an Advent calendar. It’s a large Christmas tree with ornaments for each of the 25 days. I still have the calendar although I made some new ornaments for it after Andrew and Laura were born. I can remember the anticipation of checking the pocket every day and always being so excited to see the next day’s ornament. When Ian and Annabelle were christened I wanted to make them something special to mark the occasion. I was not as talented (or patient) as Colleen to make the ornaments from felt like she did so I made a much larger felt tree and painted small wooden ornaments. I made an identical tree with ornaments for our house so that we now have an Advent calendar for both Andrew and Laura. Andrew swears the “TT” one is his and he may win out if Laura can have the village and the dishes. I was on the ball this year too and had the calendar up by December 1st. Some years I’ve been a real slacker and not had it up until the 6th or the 7th.
Products Used: Bazille cardstock; BG Figgy Pudding paper & chipboard; MM tag; Provo craft chipboard numbers.

The prompt for yesterday was all about your best and worst Christmas memory. These are two polar opposite memories of the same event that happened to be in consecutive years. Neither of these are the "best" or "worst" Christmas memories I have but certainly memories I want to journal about.

The journaling reads:

2005
We all went to Auntie Amy’s at Debbie’s insistence for Cookie Baking Day. Not only did no one have the stamina for a FULL day of cookie baking, I ended the day by looking down at my hand only to find that the diamond from my engagement ring was gone forever. That was almost enough to make me give up baking all together UNTIL . . .

2006
I was back in my own kitchen with all my own supplies feeling like it was okay to have another Cookie Baking Day. What a difference a year made! Laura was very into decorating the sugar cookies. Grannie left in the middle to make a Target run to treat me to new cookie sheets and Liz came to join us. I still have no diamond but the cookies tasted awesome!

Products Used: Bazille cardstock; Figgy Pudding paper & chipboard; Heidi Grace sticker letters; MM tag; misc. ribbon.

Makes me want to have a Christmas cookie right now! Maybe if I get off the computer I could get a batch made today . . .

Stress Is Coming (or is it here?)

I totally flaked on yesterday's JYC about Advent calendars event though I've done one every year since I was about 6 years old! I want to include a photo of my current Advent calendars so need to get off this computer go take them and get them on yesterday's entry. Today's is all about a good Christmas memory and a not so good one. I'm debating between a few bad ones (fortunately don't have many of those) and which of the many awesome ones I have. Will have to think on this one today and work on it tonight. I'm going to repeat my mantra - "the stress to keep up will not get to me . . ." Now if I only believed it!

My Christmas Dream

Shimelle asked us to journal today about our perfect dream Christmas. Anytime I think of Christmas and how I want it to be I think of being surrounded by my family. In case the print is too small to read the journaling says:

For me my perfect Christmas would be celebrating with all of my family even the ones that are no longer with me or have moved far away. My perfect Christmas Day always includes memories of wonderful Christmas’ past with these special people!

Christmas Cards

I just love everything about them! The journaling is tiny so here it is:

I absolutely love Christmas cards! I’ve been making mine since 2003 but have been sending them every year since I was in high school. One thing I’m kind of glad I did was back when Andrew had his first Christmas in 1983 I started writing a holiday Christmas letter to include with my cards as well as including a family picture. I have kept up with the letter and the photos every year since then. I have often thought that when my kids get married I will give their spouse-to-be an album with all of the letters and photos to kind of give them a small history of our family. I know lots of people hate receiving these kinds of letters but I’ve had lots of great feedback from people over the years who tell me they love hearing all about what is going on with our family through our holiday letters. I’m also happy to report that this year I will have my cards out by Dec. 10th which is the US Postal Service deadline for cards. So far I’ve only received about 3 cards but love going home each night from the office and seeing if there are two or three in the mailbox.

Christmas Weather

San Diego Christmas - it's different than most people have but I wouldn't trade it for anything except maybe a little snow. Thankfully this year I will get my Christmas snow at New Year's when I go to the mountains then I get to leave it there!

It's Here - December 1st!

I'm starting Shimelle's class today all about journaling the Christmas season. http://www.shimelle.co.uk/ I am hoping to use this as a way to get down in writing how I feel about the season, good or bad. So here goes - The journaling reads:

It’s here! The beginning of that magical season I love and look forward to every year. This year I am truly dedicating myself to one thing ~

ENJOYMENT!
· I will enjoy the preparation
· I will enjoy my family

But most of all I will try to keep the spirit of the season in my heart as I truly enjoy myself this Christmas!

Merry Christmas, Gaye!