Christmas Journal — Days 17 and 18

 First, I must report that my brother and his family did arrive safely right at supper time last night.  We are having a lovely visit:  the 4 cousins seem to have bonded pretty well, and the adults are having a nice time visiting and catching up.  They went to visit Great-Grandma Humphrey today (plus my aunt and cousin and her baby).  I didn’t get to go because I had to go to school for the Holiday Music Program.    It was nice, but sitting on a bleacher for 1.5 hours is a killer.

2124355328 7425bdb261 Christmas Journal    Days 17 and 18

2124356052 d04a152fe6 Christmas Journal    Days 17 and 18

The prompt on the 17th was “I saw this and thought of you” — to journal about perfect gifts, either that you’ve given or received.  I really struggled with what I was going to say, but I’m happy with how it turned out.

The page about food took me ages longer than it should have because Photoshop crashed on me last night and I had NOT saved in awhile.  So, I gave up and went to bed.  It turned out OK, but not terrific.  I’m trying to remember that I don’t have to knock every single page out of the park — it’s supposed to be a learning experience, but it’s also supposed to be about reflecting and not creating amazing works of “art” every day.

I think you can probably read the text of the first OK, the journaling on the food page reads:

The only food that our family “requires” for Christmas is Cinnamon Streusel Coffee Cake.  I have fond memories
of our Christmas Brunches at the Johnsons.  The only other food I remember from those events was the custom
omelettes Dr. Johnson made.

Depending on the year, and whether or not we are in Iowa, we host Christmas Dinner for my Mom’s extended
family.  In the past this meal has been a traditional turkey dinner with all of the fixings.  Last year, though, we did
something different: I made several batches of pizza dough, bought lots of pizza toppings, and let everyone make their
own personal pizza.  It was a lot of fun, and we’ll be sure to do it again!

With David and his family here, we are planning on a nice meal of some sort on Friday:  I don’t know what that
will be, but I suspect it might be turkey, potatoes, green bean casserole, and other yummy foods like that.

We usually get together for a nice meal with my husband’s family at some point during the month.  My mother-in-
law is a wonderful cook, and even though she has decided to stop doing the turkey meal (which always requires so
much last minute work), we always eat well at her house.  This year’s meal was a momentous occasion: Grandma E.
decided that the 4 grandkids were old enough to use the fancy dishes and real glasses!

We’ll be at my sister’s for Christmas Day, and I don’t know what she has planned for Christmas Dinner.  She is
8 months pregnant and has a toddler.  None of us will complain if she decides that we will be having a Traditional
Pizza Meal rather than something requiring significant amounts of cooking.

************

Today’s prompt:  write a letter to Santa.  I got Will to write his, I need to twist Joe’s arm to write one as well.   I can’t decide if my letter is going to be serious (i.e. Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Man), greedy (i.e. a list of “things”) or wishful thinking (i.e. an extra hour or 2 a day).   I suppose that Katie should write one as well, although I don’t know what she would ask for, as her life is pretty perfect the way it is.

TTFN-

Suzanne

Christmas Journal — Day 16 plus a really old UFO

2118145295 c3455b8c20 Christmas Journal     Day 16  plus a really old UFO

The little tag says “I’m a lucky girl, with a lot to be very thankful for.”

It is not the best picture of my husband, but I do not have very many pictures of him.   If I take a better one of him sometime soon, I’ll replace it.

The lyrics along the side are from the song “Thankful,” which is on the new Josh Groban Christmas CD.

I’ve been helping my mom getting ready for her house guests. When I was at her house on Saturday she had out some Christmas ornaments and I snagged this one to bring home to my tree:

2118923682 f34b543e1a Christmas Journal     Day 16  plus a really old UFO

Cute, right? Cross-stitched by me when I was….7 years old. Mom would have been the one to add the lace, backing, and hanger.

Except look:

2118145951 23333d0c1f o Christmas Journal     Day 16  plus a really old UFO

It has never been stitched by hand to close it up.

The sad thing is that I hung it on the tree in order to take the pictures, and I suspect that it will stay there until it gets taken off the tree, packed away…and remain unfinished until I pull it out of the box next year.   Or maybe I’ll surprise everyone and just go do it, since it’ll take, what, all of about 5 minutes???

xxoo-

suzanne

Christmas Journal — Days 14 and 15

2117712585 7371463156 Christmas Journal    Days 14 and 15

2118489524 87d6ed7d2a Christmas Journal    Days 14 and 15

If you click the pictures, you’ll be taken to Flickr where you can see the credits for the pages. I’ve just realized that my text for Day 15  is running a little crooked (I had it crooked, and then straightened it back out, but obviously didn’t get it completely straight….)

I’m still feeling pretty lousy this morning, but:  I do have the first dose of antibiotics in me, as well as some Nasonex, so hopefully it won’t take long before the pressure in my head is relieved.

And I’m now ready to be a little more grateful and a little less irritated….

TTFN-

Suzanne

Day 14 Text:

One of the most important parts of Christmas to me is the music.  It would almost be easier for me to pick the songs I don’t like, rather than trying to name one or even 10 of my favorites.  I love them all for different reasons.  Many times, it’s the one I’m listening to right now that is my favorite.  It’s been several years since I’ve sung at church, but when I did, I usually picked Gesu Bambino or O Holy Night.

This  year I’m playing for the Methodist Church choir, which also means playing for 2 services in December.  I’m finding that this is primarily going to be a Jim Brickman year — as the songs that seem to want to be played are from the new book of his Christmas music that I purchased earlier this year.

My new favorite Christmas CD this year is Josh Groban’s “Noel.”  I could listen to him sing all day long.

Day 15 Text:

This year we will both HAVE visitors and BE visitors.  When I wrote about my perfect Christmas, I
had no idea that my brother and his family might come to Iowa for a visit!  Needless to say,
we are all quite excited! They will be sleeping at my Mom’s house, but they will spend plenty of time
over at our house, too.  We have a lot to pack into their 3 days of visit!

Next week we’ll be headed to my sister’s for a week.  We’ll get there on Christmas Eve — I’m looking
forward to enjoying Christmas with my 2 year old nephew.    He is just starting to “get” the magic
of Christmas, and the addition of having his big cousins to play with ought to be quite fun.

We have lots of things planned for our visit to New York City — the boys are quite excited!  At the
top of the list are visits to the Statue of Liberty, Ground Zero, the Empire State Building, Times Square,
and Rockefeller Center to see the tree.

Our biggest wish in the 2 weeks to come is for good weather so that all of our traveling will be safe
and without delay.

Christmas Journal — Day 13

Now I’m only going to be one day behind.  Hopefully this weekend I can get caught back up, before the craziness of next week descends upon us.  (It’s a good kind of crazy, but crazy nonetheless…)

We are headed to the movie theater to see Beowulf tonight.

TTFN-

Suzanne

2110895031 3681abe4cf Christmas Journal     Day 13

Text reads:

Twin boys means gifts that are (a) the same (b) the same but different or (c) equivalent.  Since so many are option (a) — it only makes sense for those to be opened at the same time.  Whether it is Christmas morning at home, or we are with Grandparents or other relatives, we usually take turns opening packages, starting with the kids.  I remember childhood Christmas morning as being a free-for-all, but my Mom says that we did take turns.  Because we lived far from family, we had piles of gifts to open on Christmas morning — many had arrived in the mail.  Now we live close to relatives, so we “have Christmas” with lots of different people, opening gifts at many different times throughout the month.

Credits:

Erica Hite — A Joyful Season kit
Font — Joyful Juliana, Batik Regular
Designs by Laura — Custom fill chipboard alpha — simple
Syndee Nuckles — Instant Photo template
Weeds and Wildflowers — A Wildflower Holiday kit

Christmas Journal — Day 12

2111672520 bb442f0321 Christmas Journal     Day 12

The prompt was Christmas Past — to think and record more memories (there was more to it than that, Shimelle had a number of ideas and directions this could go). Based on the recent Santa related events, I decided this was the most appropriate thing for me to think about/document for this year.

The picture is from their first Christmas.  They were so sweet.  I think that’s about the only picture we got of them with Santa.  They’ve never been interested in sitting on his lap and telling him what they want.

Credits:

Erica Hite — A Joyful Season kit
Font — Susie’s Hand, Batik Regular
Designs by Laura — Custom fill chipboard alpha — simple
Cheryl Barber — Glass Styles from scrapgirls.com
Thao Cosgrove — Pen and Ink Transparency
Kimb’s designs — Christmas Around the World kit
Lisa Whitney — Believe kit

pixel Christmas Journal     Day 12