December Daily 2015 - Christmas Week

The final pages! Ready for a bunch of photos?! Christmas week including Christmas Day in my December Daily album looks a little like this…

Day 21 was Christmas shopping and Starbucks of course, and day 22 had no photos! I just plain forgot to take any. But I used the paper bag that I got from the store where I bought the marshmallows used for my class’s Christmas party marshmallows. Wintery and some fun texture! I cut down a Studio Calico card to glue on, and as we used the marshmallows to make snowmen, I was able to finally use the snowman wood veneer I’ve had for 2 years.

Day 23 documents clothes shopping and making their own marshmallow snowmen. YUM! I used the back of the paper bag (which is actually two layers of paper bag to make it stronger, and washi to secure the edges), and stapled the clothing tags together before gluing them down, so that I didn’t have to staple through the bag (and thus be seen on the other side).

Day 24 was a Christmas Eve party with our international playgroup of old. AMAZING food, amazing friends. We had a book exchange, so I cut out a 3×4 piece from the wrapping on the book I chose, plus Google had a cute Christmassy doodle for the day (the template to make a house), so I screenshot and cut it out for the day number card.

And some careful glare-placement/cropping of other kids’ faces, ha! Plus Christmas lights. PINK! We had to go into town for some very last minute Christmas shopping - thankfully being Japan, Christmas Eve is just another day, so it wasn’t busy at all - and this tree was outside the mall we went to.

Followed by Santa’s deliveries later that night, and the Christmas Day divider page!

Merry Christmas!

I used one page for each of the kids to document the gifts they got - 2 photos and a journalling card.

Then a 2×2 page to include some of the gift tags and also make the album a little more fun.

We had a beautifully quiet and calm family day, just us doing our thing for our last Christmas Day in Japan. Which included documenting the fact that you can get mail on Christmas Day (and hence one of my presents from my husband), and the traditional KFC for lunch. No, seriously! KFC had a hugely successful marketing campaign in the 80s, I think it was?, that led to KFC being the “traditional” Christmas lunch. Japan doesn’t have any historical or religious affiliation with Christmas, so it is very secular and commericalised here.

An afternoon tea at Starbucks, then lamb tortillas for dinner. Very traditional, ha!

And finally, some quiet playing with Christmas presents after dinner before it was time for bed. Peace. Joy. Love.