I love Christmas time. As a scrapbooker, I find that the Christmas season is an especially important time to reflect and document. Despite the hustle and bustle, December is one of my biggest scrapbooking months. I know it makes no sense, but it is true. I can’t stop creating!

Since it is early in the month, I thought I would share a few ways to document your holiday season. These simple ideas anyone can embrace – not just scrapbookers.  

Christmas Gratitude Box
While the gratitude box concept is nothing new, why not create one just for Christmas time? Buy a pretty Christmas box that you can use just for this. Every night, invite your family to write down something they are thankful for, share it with the family and drop it in the box. Then the following year, to commence the Christmas season, read what everyone was grateful for the year before then pray and thank God for his blessings over the past year. The exercise is an awesome testament to the faithfulness of God.

Christmas Journal
Christmas time is filled with special moments – meeting Santa, Christmas caroling, volunteering, Christmas Eve service, etc. Consider buying a blank journal just to use at Christmas time every year. In it record special moments from throughout the season. Think of what a cool keepsake this will be five, ten, twenty years from now. You can easily glue in a few photos throughout it, too.

Christmas Photos and Letters Keepsake
Each year I notice more and more people doing away with Christmas cards and replacing them with family photos and letters. Why not keep these photos and letters to look back on for years to come? Buy an 8.5×11 scrapbook or binder with some sheet protectors. Each year, put your family letter and photo on one side and the cards and photos from friends and family on the other. I am excited to start this tradition this year. This is the album I bought to keep my photos and letters. I made a pocket using cardstock to keep the photos and letters from shifting too much. You can buy 8.5×11 cardstock at any craft store.

A Dedicated Christmas Album
I believe people take more photos during the Christmas season than at any other point during the year. If you are a scrapbooker, you know it is impossible to scrapbook all those photos. I only scrapbook a few of my favorite photos. The rest go in a dedicated Christmas album. I love the two-up 4×6 albums that you can find at Target or any mass retailer. I develop my photos and slip them in the page protectors, with the occassional Christmas paper or journaling card accent throughout. Easy! Over time you will have a beautiful library of Christmas albums. Another option is to create a photo book on a site like Shutterfly with all your photos in one place. I love the 8×8 size.

I hope these ideas will inspire you to take time to document your family’s Christmas season. For more Christmas crafty/scrapbooking ideas, visit my blog, The Mom Creative. And if you aren’t a photographer/crafter/scrapbooker, but you like to bake, join in The Mom Creative’s cookie recipe exchange tomorrow! We’d love to sample your favorite recipe.

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