It's Past That Time of Year Again

For those of you who receive my Christmas Cards and never noticed, they are all handmade. All 60 of them. I do not sew Halloween costumes and I do not make class treats for every grade school event. I rarely even make a family dinner - however, if my family would agree on one dinner that they all like I will make it. Cheese Fondue comes close and we do have that for fun occasions.

What I do make are scrap books, full of stories about our day, places we enjoy and friends we love. Card making is the younger sister to Scrap books, same papers, same glue, similar creativity.

So every summer I endeavor to make 60 Christmas Cards before September, and have as many pre-addressed envelopes as possible. The year Kaeden was born I was rocking the process. Not only were all of the cards completed in mid summer but the birth announcements were mostly planned - except for knowing if we would be using blue or pink paper. Both sets of envelopes were preaddressed. So when baby Kaeden came home he snuggled in my lap while I printed letters for the birth announcement and letters for the Christmas card. And then assemble and glue them together to be mailed out within a few days of his glorious arrival home. I felt so accomplished. Being sent back into the hospital for Christmas and not able to see the children was a punch in the gut but at least I felt I could rest because all of the work I needed to do had already been mailed.

I believe this is the sixth year of home made Christmas cards, I am sure I have a sample of each one here some where but not in any organized fashion. I thought the Oh Christmas Tree card of 2007 was spectacular and I was pleased with how well it looked. This year the style is different but I think it has a formal look and I can't wait to get the first one completed so I can see how it matches my imagination. I am probably 50% complete with the whole process.

This year is the first year in a long time that I have been working on Christmas cards so close to Christmas. I used to always have them complete before September because October, November and December are really photo months and Scrapbooking becomes a priority!

But this year the local city elections threw a wrench into the timing. And on top of that the community is hosting a garage sale. We have tons and tons of baby gear and toys that all needs a good home. So this week I am sorting, dusting, pricing and hunting down anything in my home that we have not used in the last year or two. A lot of the good toys are going to go but they are in good shape and they bring much laughter and play to children who like it.

Audrey is the hardest child to buy toys for. She loves to check them out once and then she moves on. The science kits that challenge her require adult supervision. If any of you knew Brendan as a child you would understand how very very important it is for any of his offspring to be well supervised when around chemicals and opportunities of science.

Between the garage sale and furniture posted on Craig's List we hope to make a little cash cushion for our checking account. We had decided to buy Audre and ipod shuffle for her birthday - unless Brendan buys a lot of songs for it, it should come out to be a cheap present.

But we can't have a child with a cooler gadget than "ours" so Brendan got "him" an itouch so he can surf the internet and listen to books on tape at the library and other fun stuff. So now the goal is to make enough money on the garage sale to pay for the new gadget!

So the Christmas Cards - I am half way done with making them. So thrilling. Tuesday is the election and our one last push to get the voters to recognize our candidate in the hopes he'll get the vote in the polling booth. So Tuesday will be a busy day - but we've done long hours of walking door to door in many neighborhoods so I have put my time in for certain. Audrey even had fun helping too.

My life will change dramatically after November 9th. The election will be over, the garage sale will be over and Audrey's birthday sleepover party will be done. Leaving me with 2 weeks to finish making any of the rest of the Christmas cards completed before Thanksgiving.

Once that is done I will debate if I want to make another afghan for the family room - if I can find a good After Turkey sale!