project #2: christmas book.

Christmas wins the “favorite season” award in this household. And truth-be-told, Jon usually starts the Christmas music around October. The sleigh bells & jingle swells are welcomed by me, though…I kind of like the season, too.

I bought a double-pack of photo albums about 4 years ago…& while one was filled up immediately, the other sat unused in a box. Around the time of the guest book idea, I ran across yet another idea from Becky Higgins: a Christmas book. This basic Target-brand photo album was perfect…



Being that it is our favorite season & we try to make the most of celebrating it each year, I thought it would be fun to have a book holding the memories surrounding that glorious food-filled jingle-belled holiday season!



Things started out much the same way—I started with a basic sketch that would be relatively consistent throughout the book. Becky’s book is large—but as she shared it via a video on her blog (video is on Nov. 9, 2007), I realized just how cool something like this year-after-year could be! (call me crazy, or nutty, or a paper-nerd…).

{see!! it isn't done yet! this is a page for favorite Christmas memories/tradition in each of our households growing up...}

{Christmas 2006}

I wanted each year to contain a photo of us from that season & the Christmas card we sent out—which, as you’ll notice was included only in 2008 since our lazy selves didn’t send a card out the year prior. In other years, I just substituted another large photo. The smaller photos show other parts of the holiday season—cinnamon rolls, time with family, etc. And the journaling gives a brief description of what we did on & surrounding Christmas.


{Christmas 2008}

Again, although I’m warming up to the idea of digital photobooks (from MyPublisher, Blurb, or Shutterfly), an annual book like this needs to be added-to…hence my paper & glue indulgences (sorry Jon…I LOVE YOU!!).



As time goes on, I’m excited to be able to look back & remember what our lives were like on Christmas each particular year…


{Christmas 2007...& please don't mind the small picture on the lower left...thank Justin & Beth for that one...}

This can obviously be adapted (without making it overwhelming) to any holiday, event, or season…a “birthday” book (oooo!! That’d be fun!!), Halloween book, etc. I try to not let myself get caught up in the “industry” of scrapbooking (& trust me, it IS an industry) because it is all-too-easy to get overwhelmed with self-induced expectations that you are not doing enough. Add to that the realization that my kids are not going to want 37 volumes of “family scrapbooks” to lug around…& we get projects like this one :)