December Daily® 2013 | Day 22, 23, 24, and 25

Welcome to December Daily™ 2013 | Days Twenty-Two through Twenty-Five.

I took some time today to finish up my 2013 album and am ready to move on to the next projects! I'm one of those people that is ready to be done with Christmas when it's over and am ready to move on to thinking about the new year and One Little Word.

Days 22-25 were spent at my parents house on the coast. There were lots of opportunities for photos and I so loved having my family all together. It was perfectly imperfect.

One of the things I remembered again this year is that Christmas tends to bring to the forefront all the real things in our lives. What I mean by that is that it brings together the past and the present, the challenges and the success, the fears and the hopes, the sadness and the joy, the hard edges and the softness.

It's a very emotional time no matter your family circumstances.

I was emotional again this year and I think I just need to joyfully accept that this is the way it's going to be and simply live it - remembering again my goal to live the length and the width - rather than trying to stuff it inside.

So thankful for my family - a wonderfully crazy group of people that are family by blood and by choice who are all doing the best they can everyday.

And thank you for playing along again this year with December Daily™. I hope it helped you to celebrate and savor the season!

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Here's a look at my last few days:

December 22 features a photo of me sitting at the window in my Mom's computer office area. It was an awesome place to work on my album.

I continued to print all my 4x6 with a white border using my Epson PictureMate. Super simple.

Day 22 went on for a couple of pages. I knew I was going to have enough page protectors so I just printed up a bunch of photos and then cut a page protector in half to get the two 3x4 pockets.

The top one holds a gift tag and string and the bottom one hold a small gift bag with three chipboard embellishments on top.

The back of the bottom pocket includes a couple post-it notes where my Dad had written crab weights and costs. The crab this time was really insanely good. It's usually good but it was especially good this time - very white and full. Delicious.

I finished up Day 22 with a photo of some of us visiting the lights at Shore Acres and a photo of my Dad and I picking the crab.

Day 23 includes a few pages as well.

"Merry and Bright" is from my digital set of Merry Everything.

It was fun to have new things to take photos of this year. Loved seeing all those kids and kids of kids stalkings hanging from my parent's mantle.

I used the checklist card to include our family and friends who spent time with us at the beach this year.

Day 24 was all about opening presents. It worked well for us to spread the opening throughout the day and my journaling talks about that choice.

I used some ribbon from one of the packages to create a tab (stapled on with a tiny attacher).

I cut up some more of the Webster's Pages It's Christmas overlay and placed it on top of a photo of the girl cousins. I added some more stars and sequins in the pocket above and sewed it shut right on top of the photo.

We took so many cousin photos and I don't think there was a single one where they were all standing or sitting still and looking at the camera. Totally okay - I'll work with what I have!

Simon may never take off those Santa jammies.

For Christmas Day I added a photo from my parents in the morning and then a photo I took at Chris' house in the evening.

I included a 4x6 journal card that outlined the timeline for Christmas Day. Above I added some paper that Santa used to wrap gifts this year.

On the back I included a lottery ticket and a letter to all the kids from Santa.

For my final page I printed out something I found on Pinterest. You can find it here.

Again, thank you for joining me on this journey! Wishing you all the best in the new year!

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