On the first day of Christmas

Well, the first day of OUR Christmas anyway. I like to get the tree up on December 1st, since the Advent box starts, but over the weekend I got the tree up, and Mark has also put up the ceiling decs, so it is very Christmassy here! I got to open the first of my UKScrappers Advent parcels, which was 2 packs of Herma refills - very exciting if you are a scrapper believe me, but to you non-scrappers - well you must think so what....

I sent this off on Friday-

I made a net of beads around this bauble for a 'Handmade Secret Santa Present' swap on UKS, so hope my swappee likes it. Will report back.

On another scrappy note, I am going to go for the Banana Frog DT - very prestigious in my eyes - so probably out of my league, but certainly a bit more of a chance getting in if I actually enter than if I don't! Trouble is - don't think my current output reflects my commitment or ability. For sure I am more motivated to scrap when I have DT stuff to work with - but haven't had SBS stuff for AGES now.

Anyway, my main reason for posting is to keep up with the theme 'Journal Your Christmas'. Shimelle is doing a class throughout December - daily prompts/ideas etc to your inbox to create a journal of your Christmas - sounds basic I know, but it is actually quite hard work to create an interesting record of any period of time. Jen, from my blog links on the left, has a link to one she did last year and it is lovely. I think it would be great to produce an annual journal of Christmases, since in MY memory, they have all kind of blended into one big Christmassy blur. A good blur, but I would be hard pushed to remember gifts/guests/food/family reactions from specific years, and I think it would have been lovely to have that now. That's my life in a nutshell really - after the event.

SO - this morning I intend to get some pics onto my memory card - a couple for the CJ I am working on, some of Oliver and my niece's 5th birthday last year, which I want to make into a mini-book in time for her 6th birthday next week. Nice to keep abreast of events as they take place I say ha ha. We will walk over to Sainsburys to get them printed, thereby having our daily exercise/chat at the same time. On the walk we normally we play 'guess the Pokemon' using first letters and then the next letter etc, which I think helps Oliver with spelling/visualising words but I might try to con him into some geography today with capital cities and such like. Will it work? Doubt it, like most kids he can spot an educational opening a mile off.

I made two Christmas cakes over the weekend too, a little late as I like to douse them in brandy for a few weeks, sorry - feed them, and I am ever conscious of the pile of pickled onions I haven't done yet.....