Tip of the Month

Traditions. The holiday season is all about traditions. What traditions do you have that you've documented or want to record in your albums? Have you documented a tradition in your album? If so how? Was it a layout or a whole album about this tradtion? Share and inspire others

kathy m from San Jose CA writes...
I would love to do a whole Christmas album someday, but I just haven\'t found the time or inspiration yet. Maybe I will after this thread. I\'ve recorded our gingerbread house party tradition in my albums. But I would like to record my decorations/ornaments.

Patti writes...
We have a whole group of traditions -- an Advent calendar with Bible reading and ornament for small tree every night; big tree put up day after Thanksgiving and then we watch the original/cartoon version of \"The Grinch\" and eat home-made pizza; small gifts in the stockings for 12 days, & the first day is their ornament for their collection; etc., etc. Last year I made a \"Christmas Tradition\" album for each child, and I had them write what they thought about each tradition & why it was important to them. I journalled about the tradition itself and how we started it (from dh\'s family, from my family, etc.), and of course, I included pictures from thoughout the years of that child that involved each tradition. I gave them to them in January, when we were experiencing the let-down of Christmas & the gray, dreariness of January (in my part of the country). It led to an evening of talking and laughing and togetherness, which with 2 teens in the house is a rarity!

GBS from Baton Rouge, LA writes...
I did a layout several years ago about our family game night on Christmas Eve. I am thinking more and more about doing more about our traditions. I am realizing just how important these are. We exchange names for Christmas stockings, that is special to us. It becomes so very personal. I am about to do a layout about some of our traditional foods that we have at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Rinda writes...
I\'ve been documenting one tradition or special christmas decoration each year in our family album. I\'ve covered the nativity set my MIL made us, my mother\'s nativity set, the tree skirt I made, and the construction paper star that I made in kindergrten that I place on the tree every year. This year, I plan to highlight houses, I think. I also do a two-page spread every year on cutting down our christmas tree and christmas baking. Finally, I do have an album in which I scrap all the pictures I get in Christmas cards every year. It\'s so much fun to pull out and look at. I just started a new one last year, but the first one had over ten years worth of pictures in it! Rinda

Phyllis in IL writes...
I went through all my Christmas pictures from when I was a kid up until current and made a Christmas album according to decades. Each year I add a lay-out to this album. Since I have a huge family and we have a big Christmas eve party I have a lot of pictures to work with.

Neece from Tennessee writes...
I haven\'t scrapped about our holiday traditions in my albums, but I did a LO for a Tag Circle Journal swap on the topic of \"Christmas Traditions.\" That particular LO got me to thinking about needing to document how our family celebrates holidays throughout the year, even how we celebrate birthdays. I thought I\'d like to begin an album with the theme being family traditions. I would divide each holiday into categories, such as Christmas, Birthdays, Thanksgiving, etc. Then I\'d like to include a few photos on each page with lots of journaling describing how we celebrate our family\'s special occasions. I\'d love to begin this album sometime after the new year in \'05.

Angie from AR writes...
I have two albums for Christmas that I want to do. I have been collecting info and papers but haven\'t had a chance to work on them yet. The first one is a 12x12 album about Christmas\' throughout my life - memories and then current ones with the current traditions that I do and our favorite recipes for christmas. The second one I want to do is a small album that matches the larger one but to display my ornaments. Each year my mom gives me an old antique ornament. I have a victorian tree and that\'s one of my favorite parts of Christmas is to see what she\'s found for me. My daughter has also started getting me ornaments and so I\'ve been taking pictures of them to scrap in the smaller album.

Angela in VA writes...
We have one that is a little unusual. My mom gathers some small gifts and wraps them. We all choose one and feel the package and then we all have to swap with someone else at least once. It is alot of fun trying to guess what is in the packages. We always have such a fun time with it and the kids love it(even us big kids, LOL). Anyway I always make sure to get pictures of everyone smelling, squezzing, shaking and rubbing over the packages trying to figure out what they are, LOL!!. I usually have a two page LO from each Christmas, :).

mamichelle writes...
One of our traditions started out when the boys were little. We\'d let them open one gift after church on Christmas eve, if they behaved. I did put it on a Christmas LO because we had photos of them all dressed up in front of the tree. We still do this and the boys are 14 & 18. The other tradition from my dh\'s family is to have Santa leave our stockings beside or on our bed so that the boys would open and it would give us more time to wake up before going downstairs. We still do this also even though we have to wake them up now!! LOL

Karen in Texas from k writes...
of our holiday preparation so giving it proper documentation in the scrapbook seemed like a natural.

Deb writes...
I made a Christmas album with favorite pictures from each year since my first baby was born--1987. It is very special to all of us since we can see our girls grow up without juggling lots of albums! Then I also made a small album with photos of favorite ornaments and Christmas decorations and explanations of where they came from. When we travel, I try to find an ornament to buy as a souvenir and it is such fun to get them out each year.

Kris from Kentucky writes...
I have a Christmas album that includes every Christmas since we were married in 1996 and every year I take a close up of new ornaments that we bought on vacations or that were gifts to us. Starting in 1998, when our first daughter was born, we started feeding Santa\'s reindeer right before bed time on Christmas Eve. The photos of that are really pretty because the girls are still dressed up from church, it is dark out, and the reindeer food sparkles in the air.

Gail in PA from Gail Fleisher writes...
Since I just had my 70th birthday and only started scrapping a few years ago, I have two Christmas albums -- one starting 2000 and going forward and one starting 1999 and going backward. Each year shows 3 events --- 1)Ornament Exchange Club (like cookie exchanges) the first weekend in December, which has been going on for over 20 years now; 2)Cookie weekend, the 2nd weekend in December, when two of my daughters (and now 3 granddaughters, too) come to my house with some goodies they\'ve already made and we then spend the weekend making lots more for gifts for family, friends, teachers, bus drivers, etc. and pack them all up in tins with from 2 of each kind (we make 11 different cookies, plus fudge and spiced pecans) to a dozen each depending on the recipient --- and we have friends who drop in to \"taste test\" the goodies; and 3) the actual Christmas day, when my children arrive in shifts to exchange gifts until everyone is there for dinner at 5PM. This year there will be 21 with DH\'s daughter coming from Illinois. I have quite a few pages for each year, and since this is \"history\" I don\'t care how many pages it takes. When I look through my pages, I\'m back there in whatever years it was, and it\'s wonderful. Gail

Joe Kirincich from Joe Kirincich writes...
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Marci Beth from Conneaut, Ohio writes...
Our family tradition for Christmas is to take family pictures around the tree. First we take one of our family (my mom, my dad, my self and my two brothers). After that we take one of each family alone. My oldest brother\'s family, then my other brother\'s family and then my husband and I. And the final picture is of all of the kids. We have taken these pictures ever since I was a baby. I would eventually like to put a whole album together of all of these pictures. I have over 20 some years of these family Christmas photos and of course our family is getting bigger and bigger. It is so neat to look at all of them, to see how everyone has grown or changed throughout the years.

Sherrie from WY writes...
My family is so young...we have a 3, 2, and almost 1 year old. We started a new tradition that they open a present on christmas eve and it\'s a new pair of jammies. I think these would make cute, cute pages!

Barb from PA writes...
We always open one gift on Christmas Eve. The rest are opened on Christmas. I have always made my pies the day before too. It starts off the Christmas Day spirit. When I was younger and still living at my mom & dad\'s (long time ago) I remember always going out in the woods to cut a tree. We lived in the country then. Also, I gather my trailing vine in the woods to make Christmas Wreaths.

Barb from PA writes...
Here\'s two more I almost forgot about. 1. When my children were little, we would hide a small gift somewhere in the house and play the cold/hot game. My kids loved it. My grandson is only two but when he gets alittle older I will do the same with him. 2. At work we always do a Polyanna. This is where you all get a gift under $20. You could do more or less with whatever dollar amount that is agreed on. Then wrap them with no name on it. Each person draws a number and the gifts have #\'s. Then the 1st person opens the gift with #1 and then the one with #2 goes next. That person can open their gift or trade it. It goes on and on. Say like if you are #15 then you get the gift with #15 on it. You can keep it and open it or trade it for any gift already opened. Which you take from the other people who were #1 to #14. This goes on till the end with the last person getting theirs. After the last person goes, the very 1st person has their pick of anyone of the gifts they choose to trade with. It is so much fun. You can bring a nice gift or a gag gift.

Peggy in Ny writes...
my tradition is buying christmas ornaments for the kids,they also get ornaments from other people. So I started an album for each kid of the the ornaments they get and who they got it from. I\'ll admit I started this 3 years after they were born so there are a couple I don\'t remember who gave them. But I will have a picture and journaling of who gave them the ornaments and I will tell them why I choose the ornaments that I did.

Claudine from NJ writes...
of course i have family traditions but i have friends ones too. mostly just a get together with drinks and rehashing high school and telling our stories of college and now talking about careers, relationships and the futures. pics are always taken. and if they\'re at my one friend\'s house (who are now moving after this year!) we take the same pic on the same blue couch. must make sure we do that this year!!!

debs from valencia, california writes...
Every Christmas since my grown children were small we would bake a birthday cake for Jesus. On Christmas Eve we would pick someone to put on the icing and write \"Happy B-day Jesus\" on the cake. Since we always have a family friend or two who is alone on Christmas, we invite them to spend Christmas with us and help with the cake. And of course no birthday is complete without singing Happy Birthday. I have enjoyed scrapbooking this tradition and most of all celebrating the true meaning of Christmas.

Michelle A Lammers from Ft. Lewis Washington writes...
Over the years since I have had children the best part that my children look foward to are decorating the christmas tree and what we eat for breakfast on Christmas morning. I always make sure that we take pictures of the decorating the tree. Each year the kids ornaments get higher and higher, this is due to the fact that they are growing. Each of the children have their own set of ornaments and are added to throughout the years. We have new ones from Germany this year so they will make the tree even more special. As for the tradition of what we have for breakfast on Christmas morning... We bake a special dish from their Great-Grandma called Dutch Babies. This dish is never the same as it rises differently. I am planning on scrapbooking this dish this year, since last year she passed away. I am planning on talking about how this was one of her favorite dishes to make for me and my sister.

Carla in NC writes...
DH & I collect Christmas ornaments on every trip we take or special event we attend. A few years ago I bought the red CM album with silver ornaments on the front and that is our ornament album - used to document the story of each ornament. That whole project is still in progress, I took pictures of all the ornaments we had 2 yrs ago, but didn\'t like the way they turned out. So, this year - before packing them all away - I\'ll be doing a big photo shoot of our ornaments. Can\'t wait to have that album done for next year. I love reminiscing (sp?) about the times when & where we bought those special ornaments!

Michelle in Iowa writes...
This year I am going to make a special effort to take pictures of the individual ornaments that are special to me. (My tree has a lot of ornaments on it that were my grandma\'s; since she died, they have become extra special for me.) I think that writing down which ornaments are my favorites would be something that my kids could appreciate later in life.

Karen in Texas from k writes...
I try to focus on a different tradition each year in one of my layouts for the holidays. Some year I would like to do an album where I do a retrospective and put all of the traditions into sort of a \"Throught the Years\" format to show how are traditions evolve through the years.

Angela Thompson from Aurora Colorado writes...
This Thanksgiving I had everyone in my family write down on a tag what they were Thankful for. I took head shots of everyone and created an album. All the reason we are Thankful for. The layout was something I had been thinking about for years and I am so happy at how beautiful the album turned out. It is also nice to reflect on all the different things my family ages 3 to 70 are Thankful for.

Jean (bluejean) from Ohio writes...
Every year I make a new Christmas ornament or decorative item for everyone in the family\'s home. Its neat to go to relatives houses and see them on everyones tree, and they love getting a new ornament every year with the year on it! I\'ve actually had requests! LOL Another thing I do now is scan in everyones pictures, or get them to scan them in and send them to me, and put them all on cds for everyone... that way everyone gets yearly pictures and can share their holidays with the entire family. Sometimes extra pictures are put on too, of special occasions they want everyone to have pics of, its a great way to have all those pictures you want from the family!

Ange8th from TN writes...
I like to attempt to get every holiday and tradition. I wish that I could say that I am \"caught up\" in my scrapbooking. The truth is that I don\'t think that I will ever be!

Pam in PA writes...
One tradition that I\'ve included in my scrapbook each year is our hunt for the tree. Every year since my ds was born, we go to a tree farm and pick out our \"perfect\" tree. I include photos at the tree farm and then of the tree once we decorate it. Right now I keep these pages with my family album pages, but I plan to put them all together in a \"Christmas through the Years\" album when I get enough. It\'s fun to look back and see how my ds has grown each year and also what our tree looked like. I can\'t wait until my 2nd child is born to include him or her too!

Sue in Grapevine from Grapevine, TX writes...
I bake rum cakes for my kids teachers; also make fudge, pralines, fruitcake & lemon curd. I want to do layouts of the recipes, pics of the items & I especially want to document how many dozen eggs, pounds of butter & cups of sugar I run through in making all these goodies. Happy New Year!

Cheryl from PA writes...
When my son was born we started a tradition that I buy him one of those Christmas bears every year. It\'s so neat to look in his scrapbook and see year by year him getting bigger with all his different bears! :)

CristinainGa writes...
We hang a Christmas Pickle on the tree every Christmas Eve. Whoever wakes up and is the first one to find it on Christmas morning gets to open the first Christmas present or receives a special Christmas treat. It\'s been great fun. One year I bought a teeny, tiny pickle that no one could hardly find, except it was right in front of your nose, the anticipation was priceless. The pictures were great! And there were lots of laughs.

ckay writes...
After my mother died suddenly (heart attack) in 1998, we started lighting a big red candle in her honor before we open presents on Christmas Eve. That is my first page before the Christmas pics. That way I can honor her and have the year on the same page.

Barbara writes...
One day I will do an entire album, however I\'m afraid the pictures will be much the same. We always open 1 present the night before Christmas, which of course is always pj\'s! Everyone acts suprised and there are pictures all around. The major course starts Christmas morning. We counted over a hundred presents under (and around) our tree. There were 5 of us! LOL. The thing is though - we will wrap absolutely anything! Our youngest dd\'s boyfriend was here and he referred to it as \"an olympiad event!\" He wrapped one of her presents in a huge box (it was a watch) and we were cheering him on of how well he did. In the box though was also a scarf and a hair clip. We chastised him that there should have been two more boxes! LOL. The other thing the girls do is to time themselves and see who can make their Dad cry first! LOL My job is to standby with the camera. They will get him talking of when they were little and he turns to mush!

Leigha in GA writes...
I pulled out my \'family\' events LO\'s and have started a \'family\' album. This includes all holidays and birthdays. For Christmas we always open gifts to eachother on Christmas Eve and I make a picture of the children together in front of the tree. 2 years ago we started going to a live City of Bethlehem tour/nativity. It is amazing and one of our new traditions. I always make a picture of \'Santa\' before the kids get up and put those in my LO\'s to remember what each child got that year. I bake the same cake recipe every year for my sister for Christmas. Because of all the \'tradition\' LO talk ...I took a picture this year of the cake to do a LO about her \'gift\'. We also always HAVE to have a birthday cake on our birthdays. I make a picture of the birthday boy/girl with their cake every year and document it in my albums.

Susan Guzy from NJ writes...
If your holiday is like ours; it involves a lot of food. The Cranberry Tea bread that we make each year is a family tradition, it is just not Christmas without it. So I have included the recipe and a picture of the bread both whole and slced. MMMM looks good enough to eat! LOL

Michelle Rae *Ü* from Washington, PA writes...
I take a bazillion photos a year and for some reason I seem to get overwhelmed with everything else and don\'t get as many photo\'s as I want to for the Holidays. So I have a plan. (lol) I just bought the 25 days of Christmas Tree at Hallmark and I\'m going to do something special everyday in the spirit of the holiday next year and actually scrapbook it. Each day Austin will put the ornament on the tree and we\'ll do something special each day. Make cookies, take our presents to the Giving Tree, Go see the lights, read from our Christmas Stories, Read a passage from the Bible, etc. I allow myself get so hurried in the month of December and am going to do my best to be organized for next year. I\'m going to pre-plan ahead of time so that next year Christmas isn\'t so rush rush. I\'m going to document it and take photo\'s of this special time of year and allow myself to enjoy it. Michelle Rae