Family Traditions

Like all families, we have a lot of holiday traditions.  One of our more unusual traditions grew out of our struggle to find time for the three of us to open our Christmas presents to each other. Most years, we spend Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with my family, then drive to spend the rest of Christmas Day with Steve's family.  Depending on who is hosting, it can mean a lot of driving and a lot of rushing.  Steve, Trevor and I used to hurry to open our gifts to each other before or in between the visits with the two sides of the family.  It was not ideal.

For the past few years, we've kept the calendar clear on December 23 and spent the morning opening our gifts to each other then.  Instead of rushing, we're able to take our time and truly appreciate each gift.  Since we're not racing off anywhere, we have the time to enjoy our new games, puzzles, toys, etc. together.  It's made such a difference having this special day for just the three of us.

I've been going through my huge file of pages torn from magazines (dating back to the first issues of Creating Keepsakes) and purging the ones where I can't figure out why I ever tore it out in the first place.  In the process, I've found a lot of gems.  This layout is based on a layout/sketch called "School Party" by Shannon Zickel from the October 2011 issue of Scrapbooks Etc.