December Daily - Days 24 and 25

They're finally finished!! Yay!

I'm not sure if I'm going to add a page for today (the 31st). Last week I thought I would but today, having finally completed Days 24 and 25 I am feeling like I want to put the album and all the Christmas supplies away. Plus, Marley has been throwing up since 4:00AM so I'm a bit tired and not feeling like partying much. We'll see ...

Day 24: Christmas Eve

So here is the back of the main page for Day 23 which I made a part of Day 24.

It fit well between the days as the story of Seeing Santa spanned the two days. Marley really, really wanted to see Santa but we couldn't stay on the 23rd and the line had already been closed when we tried to go back that night so I decided to try to get in to see him first thing on the 24th. And we experienced a Christmas Miracle of sorts! I managed to get my coveted picture (that I've missed for the past few years) of all 3 girls with Santa. And Paige even smiled!! I love that girl!

Remember the Elf Cards? Well, even Santa and Mrs Claus have them! The DQ wrapper and the picture of LC enjoying her cone are from the 23rd.

On the back side of this baseball card add-in, I included a picture of me enjoying Greg's sister Christine's massage chair with my glass of wine and one of Marley telling Santa her wish list.

We went to the Nielsen's for Christmas Eve. The big event was a Crokinole Tournament. I was knocked out immediately (no surprise) and Greg took the Championship (equally, no surprise there!) The prize was a stack of scratch and wins which gave Greg a total prize of $35.00!!

I made a flap for the back page so I could add more pictures (surprise, surprise!) Here we see a couple shots I took with the self timer (my camera has this amazing function that it will actually take up to 10 self timer shots in a row - awesome!!) It is a Danish tradition to dance around the Christmas tree while singing Christmas carols (Aaron is Danish) so we tried it this year for the first time. It was a lot of fun!

Inside the flap are some snapshots of the evening.

Cousin Suzanne had some one on one time with LC.

Greg took a little "trash" break from the kid chaos.

Grandpa read "Twas the Night Before Christmas" to the kids.

We got a group shot of all the cousins.

And finally, a shot of Griffin, Paige, LC and Jasper in the tub. There were so many bubbles I feel safe showing in on the net!!

Day 25: Christmas Day

I decided to have a large picture of the Santa Loot on the main page for today. Santa was very generous this year and gave Marley a scooter, Paige a new bike and LC a standup car ramp thingy (she's all into things that move!) Paige was so dumbfounded at the sight of a new bike that she almost burst into tears. I thought I'd cry too! Her old bike has these hard plastic wheels that would just spin in place half the time and no way to brake. This one has "real" tires and brakes when you pedal backwards. Awesome!

The next few pages are collages.

This is the back of the main page. It's a collage of opening up the stockings and trying out the new toys.

Next is a collage of opening up the presents under the tree - the ones from us, Ammee and Poppa, and Aunts Jean and Moira.

The last collage (which I just adhered back to back with the one above) is of the present opening (call it Presents Phase III) with Grandma and Grandpa.

There were a lot of presents to open this year!!

The last page is a selection of 4 4x6 showing scenes of the evening.

Another group shot with the cousins - Paige looks positively pained!!

A shot of the kids table. As I say in the journalling, the kids had fun (especially opening the crackers) but didn't do a lot of eating!

And lastly, a picture of Greg carving the turkey. He was a bit coerced by his Mom but did a fine job.

And a picture of the adult table. I think this was the only time we were all sitting together that night. What with various kids needed attention at one point or another, the adults table was more of a musical chairs game than anything! Ah well, one day!!

Well there you have it. My first December Daily!

I've really enjoyed this process. I look forward to next year (and have already started stashing things for it!) Right now though, I'm more than ready to move on to new projects.

We are now back from our New Year's Eve party (we tend to celebrate the Maritimes Midnight at 8:00 our time for the kids) and I can unequivocably say that I will not be adding anything more to this album. I'm happy with the story as is.

Thanks for sticking with me during this process!