Bye bye, Christmas.

Here's the last week of my Christmas journal:

I had kind of a hard time getting the last pages of this thing done. And it wasn't just the cold medicine and lack of inspiration. This was just a *blah* Christmas this year in a lot of ways. Being sick was the worst part, and missing out on seeing a lot of people. My parents were exhausted and stressed. My sister's family lost their grandpa just a couple weeks before. It was sad to see my grandma who is really just not herself anymore.

One of the really sad moments was being at my church's Christmas Eve service...it's almost always a chorus concert, and I sang in the chorus all through junior high, high school, and into college. Whenever I sit through the Christmas Eve service I always think about those years and years of previous services and how much fun they were.

The music director at our church all through those years was a great guy--smart, funny, just very, very nice. I really admired him. He committed suicide this past spring...I think it shocked almost everyone who knew him to the core. So I was sitting there on Christmas Eve listening to all those familiar voices, and thinking about all those other Christmas Eves with John directing the chorus, and I just couldn't get him out of my mind.

I got up to go to the restroom during a part where the chorus was sitting down and they were having some instrumental music, and who should I run into at the drinking fountain but John's sister. She is a fellow alto, and we stood next to each other in the alto section in the chorus.

I debated for a second whether to say anything to her about him, but I had been having such a strong sense of him, so I told her I was thinking about John. Her eyes filled with tears and she said, "I can hardly get through this night." We both just stood there and wept for a couple of minutes. It broke my heart and I still can't figure if it was right to mention him to her or not, since she had to pull it together and go back in and sing after that. I hope it helped her to know that someone else was thinking about him, too.

Sooo...just some sadness this Christmas. And this feeling that as the years go by, there will be other people I'll be missing as well. Ugh.

Not that there weren't lots of little lovely moments, too, because there were! I called them "moments of grace" in my last entry. These tiny things that connect you to the people you love, conversations, smiles, shared jokes and laughter. Thank goodness for those! I enjoyed my nephew Tanner and niece Kylie SO much this year...they are growing up into delightful people and it's fun to relate to them in a new way now that they're not "littles" any more. (Not that I don't adore the "littles" in the family--I do!) And my sweetie pie Todd makes every Christmas happy for me in a myriad of ways.

So the tree came down today and the journal is done, and I'm more than ready to move on from the holiday season and get my hands onto and into 2009.

Yesterday's and today's journal entries:

More pages.

Isn't it funny how you start December feeling sort of on top of things, and then get busier and crazier as the days go by? Or does that just happen to me?

It's not really all that crazy here, but we're both quite busy getting last-minute gifts made and that sort of thing. We're heading to Ohio on the 21st (we decided to stay for Todd's office party on the 20th after all) so everything has to be bought, created, wrapped, and packed by then--it's always a bit of a crunch at the end when you have four or five or six days lopped off of your Christmas prep time.

I sat down for a little while this morning and got the past three days' worth of Christmas journaling done, though.


We went up to Williamsburg on Sunday to get one last gift, and stopped off at Merchants Square downtown to see a performance of "A Christmas Carol" that I'd heard about. It was a one-man (well, one man plus a stage manager named Bob), 15-minute version, performed by an actor named Ed Whitacre on a tiny set built into what looked like a little moving trailer. First he came out and explained the show, sort of like a circus barker...

And then he became Scrooge and acted out the story with the help of some strategically placed props. See that little table he's about to fall asleep on?

With a little flip, the table top comes off and becomes the ghost of Jacob Marley!

The ghost of Christmas Past came out of Scrooge's bathrobe pocket...the ghost of Christmas Present was a puppet that emerged from the picture above the fireplace:

And the ghost of Christmas Yet-to-Come was a long skeleton arm that emerged from the backstage door and then pushed out Scrooge's tombstone from within the fireplace.

It was all very clever, very broadly played, with some audience participation to keep the kids interested...I really enjoyed it. Of course, I love the story of "A Christmas Carol," and even though it was a condensed version, it hit all the important bits, especially the part about getting a second chance to start over, as Ed-the-actor runs out of time when the stage manager's stopwatch hits 15 minutes before the end of the show. Ed falls into despair, but Bob the stage manager perks him up with a chorus of "The Sun'll Come Out Tomorrow" and Ed leaps back into the show just in time to show Scrooge's wonderful awakening on Christmas morning. Very entertaining!

Okay, I'm off to get a few more things crossed off my to do list. See ya!

Here is Day 13, and then Day 10's entry, too...I finally got enough presents wrapped to take a nice picture.


I want to say...in case anybody happens to look at this journal and think it looks too time-consuming to do at Christmastime, it's really not. Or it doesn't have to be. I have a big pile of the papers and embellishments I picked out for this, and I just grab a couple things, slap them down, maybe rub a little ink around the edges, and call it good. It took me less than fifteen minutes to do today's entry, and that included printing out the photo.

Doing a small book (mine is 5x7" this year) and minimal journaling helps keep it fast. Next year, though, I am planning to do a lot more writing, so that will take more time. But it really has helped to make the lead-up to Christmas more special and fun for me. I've never really bought into the rush-rush, drive-yourself-crazy part of Christmas anyway, but I do get my sad or anxious or overwhelmed moments, and this journal helps keep me focused and calm. It was wonderful of Shimelle to come up with this idea and to generously leave the class open every year to those who have taken it before. The camaraderie on the forums with other people from all over the world is an added bonus!

Here's Day 12--pretty stripped down compared to yesterday!

I really want to do some Christmas baking, but I don't know who would eat it. Maybe I'll bake some stuff and send some of it to work with Todd next week...I am dying for mince tarts and fruitcake, but I think I'm the only person who would eat either one. Plus fruits and nuts are SUPER expensive this year, like everything else. Ho hum, what to do?

Meanwhile, my Christmas shopping is almost done, just one more thing to pick up, and the cards are almost all done and sent, too. And it doesn't look like we'll be going to Todd's office party, so no need to dredge up something festive to wear to that. They finally sent out invitations yesterday for a party on the 20th--good planning, that. A lot of people aren't going to be able to make it...should be a dull party, especially since the caterer doesn't have a liquor license. Most of the fun of Todd's office parties stems from the quantities of alcohol imbibed!

Anyway, we'll be en route to Ohio that day, so we won't be going, either. Ah well! So what remains on my Christmas to-do list is making a few last gifts and getting it all wrapped. I'm feeling pretty much on top of things, at least for the moment. How about you?

I've got my page for today done, but yesterday's is still awaiting a picture. The page for today looks a little demented, I think--I was trying to get a lot of things on there that don't match each other, but, oh well!

I went out and did a little holiday shopping today and it's craaaazzzy out there! I'm so glad I did 90% of my shopping online! The mall was jammed at 1:00 in the middle of a weekday afternoon--don't people have jobs anymore? Or are they all lazy good-for-nothings like me?

It was about 70 degrees and rainy, too, so all the stores were very overheated and the floors were wet and slippery. I have had the worst head-, tooth-, and jaw-ache this week from the pressure of this weather system going over us. Hopefully, hopefully, tomorrow it will be gone and we'll go back to clear and cold and this 800-pound fat man crushing my face will go back where he came from. 'Cause I'm losing my mojo in a big way right now...I just want to sit and stare out the window!

Catch-up.

I got a little behind on my journal--we've been busy and I've been tired! Here are days 7, 8, and 9. Day 7 has a few things blurred out on the "to do" list for secrecy's sake!

JYC Dec. 6

I always have a hard time with this topic--journaling about a good Christmas memory and a bad Christmas memory. The fact is, most of my Christmases have been great, and the ones that haven't--well, I don't want to re-visit them in a happy book! Bad memories are a little too personal and complex to share in two square inches of space.

Here's the picture full-size...it seems a shame to print them out at 2x3" but I wouldn't be able to fit anything else on the page if I printed them bigger.

I took the picture at a local church the other day...I was driving past and saw that their lampposts looked very Dickensian. Very Tim Holtz-ian, too--he did this gorgeous tag on his blog with a lamppost stamp a few days ago.

I don't have a Tim Holtz fetish, I swear...I simply want every product he has designed and a huge craft room to house it all. Is that a fetish? I certainly seem to be mentioning him a lot lately.

Todd is out searching the rivers for stripers and I am home with my little cold. Not really a full-blown cold, just this sore throat and headache that won't go away. I like being home on chilly evenings--much better than shivering in a kayak on the freezing water. Although the way Todd dresses for the cold, I think he'll be okay. It's like watching a climber suit up for Everest, with all the clothes he lays out!

Hope everybody's having a peaceful weekend!

***I'm dropping back in here...I just found out my brother-in-law Ky's dad passed away this morning. It was not unexpected, he's been very, very sick for several weeks and was at home with hospice care. But it's very sad for Ky and his family, for my sister Jenita, and for my nephew Tanner and niece Kylie who loved their grandpa. This is a stressful time for them all (and my sister has her college final exams this week) and a sad time, too...I know they could all use prayers and good thoughts. Thanks. ***

Day 5.

Here's my journal page, about Advent:


And here's the picture I used, full-size, just because I liked how it came out:


And here's the quote, of which I only had room to use a bit on the page:

"The season of Advent means there is something on the horizon the likes of which we have never seen before…What is possible is to not see it, to miss it, to turn just as it brushes past you. And you begin to grasp what it was you missed, like Moses in the cleft of the rock, watching God's [back] fade in the distance. So stay. Sit. Linger. Tarry. Ponder. Wait. Behold. Wonder. There will be time enough for running. For rushing. For worrying. For pushing. For now, stay. Wait. Something is on the horizon." -Jan L. Richardson, Night Visions: Searching the Shadows of Advent and Christmas. (Zowie, that's expensive on Amazon!)

I really like that quote. It reminds me of this story in Miracle and Other Christmas Stories, by Connie Willis (which I recommend all the time to anyone who will listen) called "Epiphany," which is about Jesus' second coming and unlike anything I've ever read on the topic before. It's hard to describe, but it has the same shadowy, dark, expectant feeling as the quote.

One of the things I like about this time of year is the early dark and the lights shining through it. The dark seems to fit with that mood of waiting, wondering, expecting.

It's been a quiet week here (in Lake Wobegon...no, no, that's not right...)--I've been turning in early nights, with a book, and nursing a sore throat and headache that seem to come and go and not develop into anything. Also making out Christmas cards, wrapping presents, etc. Todd had jury duty on Monday and a very distasteful incest/rape case (as he said, "Why couldn't I get a nice, easy cocaine possession?") and other than that, he's been waiting for the chance to go night fishing when the tides and winds are right. He went last night and came home with a few more big striped bass, one of which we'll be having for dinner tonight, yum.

And it's coooold! (Yay!) That's it from here.

Day 4.

For each day's prompt in this "Journal Your Christmas" class, Shimelle creates a PDF file with pictures and lots of ideas. She's using various pages from people who've taken her class in previous years, and I was startled to find today that she used my December 4 page from last year as one of her idea samples! Made me smile!

Here's today's page. I used to have big ideas about what a perfect Christmas consisted of, and now I know that all I need to make it perfect is TIME. Which is always at a premium when we're home visiting.

Here's day three's page:


And here's the cover:


See ya later!

One more thing.

Here's the December 2 journal page. I'm not feeling it yet, but maybe I'll get into the groove with it soon.


Look at the crappy writing on that sticker. I love Jenni Bowlin stuff, but her journaling stickers are the pits. You HAVE to use a Sharpie, and of course, I can never remember that until I'm already well into my writing and it's all beaded up and nasty-looking. One of those little annoyances!

JYC2008.

Here's day one of my Journal Your Christmas book. It's a 5x7" Tim Holtz book.

I was really gonna try to break away from the "aged/vintage" look this year, but last year's book was one of my favorite things I've ever done. I think vintage is just "me," especially at Christmas. Besides, I'm addicted to those Tim Holtz distress inks that make everything look old and mussed up (plus they cover a multitude of mistakes!)

More later.