Well, we are getting packed and ready to go on our fortnight of crazy traveling! Tomorrow morning we're headed up to Aberdeen, MD (4-5 hours) for Todd to do some work this week. Then we'll leave there Friday and run up to visit Todd's sister Lisa and her family in Wilkes-Barre, PA (3 hours). Then we'll drive out to my folks' house on Sunday morning (5-6 hours) and stay there through Christmas, spending some quality time with my brother and sister and their families, too. And my extended family.

The day after Christmas, we'll hop on down to Columbus (3 hours) and spend a couple days with Todd's sister Julie's family. Then we'll drive back up to my parents' house (3 hours back) and try to squeeze in all the relatives we didn't get to see on our first short stay, including Todd's parents, who we'll be passing on the freeway as we leave Lisa's house in PA and they head to it for Christmas earlier that week.

Sick of the car yet? Well, don't be, 'cause there's a 9-hour drive back to good old Virginia on New Year's Day! Hee hee!

I figure there's a 50/50 chance Todd and I can come out of this with our marriage intact. (KIDDING!) As long as the weather cooperates, it should all be okay.

I worked ahead on my Christmas journal, so here are the next three days' worth of entries. I was going to try to take it all with me on my travels, but if we cram one more thing in the car it might just collapse, so I'll catch up with the rest of it when we get back home.

Wish us good traveling weather and good fellow travelers as we all barrel down the highways together, okay? I'll check in from Maryland later this week.

Looking at our travel plans all written out makes me want to curl up in bed until Martin Luther King Day! It's going to be nuts! We're doing laundry and packing up the car this weekend.

Today's topic: gifts and how they're handed out in your family. Again, I tweaked it a little so I could include another bit from one of my favorite Christmas stories.

I decided to go with a different topic today, and get a few of my holiday recipes into the book. These are the most delicious sugar cookies ever!

Today's journal topic is Christmas traditions, and I had a hard time with that last year, because we honestly don't seem to do much the same way from year to year. And in last year's journal, I did list the few things I could think of that could be called traditions.

Since this year I want to put a few excerpts from favorite Christmas stories into the book, I decided to use a snippet from A Christmas Carol, which for quite a few years was a tradition for us to view as a play. I've also read the story many times, and as I mentioned in my journaling, I find it more touching every year. Scrooge is one of those characters that you want to laugh at, and cry for, at the same time.

Here's yesterday's journal entry, too. I was waiting for some sunshine to get my photo of our front door. I painted it red right before Thanksgiving--isn't it festive?

I went to see Christmas lights along the boardwalk in Virginia Beach with my friend Bev last night, and it was so fun. All the hotels put up displays, and you drive along the boardwalk and listen to a Christmas CD they give you at the entrance, and look at the lights. Much of it was beach-themed...very cool.

Today's journal entry is about holiday to-do lists, organization, etc...but most of my to-do list consists of shopping. And then wrapping. So my shopping list is inside this funny card that I found at a fancy paper store in Alexandria a couple of weeks ago.

Other than the shopping and the wrapping, what's left for me to do is to get packed and travel-ready. This is going to be a crazy traveling Christmas for us!

Memory.

The topic for today's journal entry is to write about good and not-so-good memories of Christmas. Since I did that last year, I decided to focus on two good memories--mine and someone else's. The story in the journaling block is Laura Ingalls Wilder's Christmas memory from Little House on the Prairie, of the Christmas she and her sister Mary received candy and a cake AND a penny and were completely delighted. And my memory is in the little tab on the side, of receiving that book for Christmas as a child!

I got today's entry done quickly this morning...now on to laundry and housecleaning! (This entry is much more sparkly in real life, by the way...)

Oh my, it's cold and crazy out there! I'm glad I don't have much more Christmas shopping to do!

Today's journal topic is "the perfect Christmas"...I can honestly say I don't think much about perfection any more. What would make this Christmas perfect for me is good, solid quality time with all the different people I love, without feeling rushed or sad that my time with all of them is so limited. I'm going to do my best to accomplish that, and everything else is just gravy!

December 3.

Although it was 60 degrees this morning, it's been blustery enough to feel wintry! The wind is threatening to take the Christmas bows off the windows of the house--the only decorating we've gotten around to! And now tonight it's gotten cold, perfect weather for snuggling up in bed with a book, which I think I may do once I post this.

Here's journal entry #3. Pretty dull...the prompt is about cards and I haven't picked any out, nor do I really feel like sending any. I like getting them, though!

Entry #2.

I'm doing a minimum of journaling this year...it feels weird not to write a lot, but I'm just not feeling verbose this time around. I'm focusing more on the art elements and the mood of the book. Wish we would get some snow!

It's that time of year again...

...time for Shimelle Laine's "Journal Your Christmas" class! One entry every day from December 1 to January 6 (although I bailed right after Christmas last year)!

I found a small house-shaped album from 7Gypsies for this year's book. I took it off the spiral, and I'm covering up the spine holes with papers. Then once it's all done, I'll punch just three holes and bind it with binder rings.

I'm having my usual case of "cover block" on decorating the cover (I never did get last year's journal cover decorated!) But here's the entry for December 1. We're supposed to write our Christmas manifesto for this year, but I'm not really a manifesto kind of girl. So this is my laid-back, feel-good, non-lofty goal for Christmas this year:

My library date stamp, which I got in like, 2000, when they were all the rage, only has the years up to 2006. Chuh! So I'm just stamping the date and then the handy AM/PM option, for each day's entry. It didn't come out too clear, but it's off to the right near the bottom. Next time I'll remember to rock the stamp.