Getting Caught Up

I had fallen several days behind on my Christmas Journal. With trying to finish up shopping, making cards for the Holiday Mart at work and other just general tasks to be done, I had not had much time this week for my journal. I had been reading the prompts each day and checking out all the beautiful work everyone has been doing. There is so much talent in this class! Everyone is doing such beautiful journals!!
I got some new goodies by Jen Wilson this week and I have been using some of them on these pages. Jen is one of my favorite digital designers. The glittery alpha, papers (except the pink one), charms, tree, notepapers, presents, off white snowflakes and tag are all hers. The red ribbon on the visitors page is by Shabby Princess. Everything else is from Holly Jolly or A Merry Season Kits that I have been using throughout this journal.
Day 13 - Presents; we do it differently in my family and in dh's family. In mine, the little ones have always played Santa and passed out all the gifts. I have fond memories of my cousin and I doing this at my grandparents' home when we were little. Now it falls to my youngest nephews and my own dd. There are so many people on my family that we open our gifts all at the same time. Once everything is opened, we go around and show off what we received. My dad then gets out his notebook he keeps every year with his list and calls out everyone's name and their gifts to make sure nothing was misplaced. We get a big laugh out of Daddy doing this each year. At dh's family, my dd is the only grandchild so she gets to help pass out the gifts. She will pass one out, then it gets opened while we all watch, and then she will pass out the next gift. It takes about as long to do this as it does in my family to get everything passed out and opened because there are so fewer people with him being an only child.
Day 14 - I love Christmas songs, but especially the old classic ones. My absolute favorite would be "White Christmas" sung by Bing Crosby. I love his rich, effortless sounding voice. A close second would be "The Christmas Song" sung by Nat King Cole. There's something about the nostalgia these old standards evoke in me that makes me feel all warm inside.
Day 15 - We are the visitors at Christmas time. We have to travel to both sets of families. I journaled about how we make sure we see as many people as we can, but we don't always get to be at every family celebration so we don't get to see some cousins that often any more. It's sad in a way, but the families are just too large for everyone to see everyone.