December Daily 2019 MEGAAA thread

Ok Thanksgiving starts off the stressful yet joyous season of PARTY in our family. So I did go to Ex’s for thanksgiving ( wanted to spend time with DS and not make DS feel like he needs to choose ) was fine. I’m actually less of a bother than his parents.

I went home from thanksgiving and set an alarm to get up at midnite for an online sale I had been waiting for for awhile! Yes I’m crazy. But I got what I wanted it should be here this week.

Worked Black Friday - thankfully a quiet day with only computer problems all day long, no people problems, thankfully.

Yesterday was my birthday & I saw my college room mate for lunch. It’s so nice seeing old friends like that! Went to dinner with DS.

Today DS goes back to school. But I also get to open my first day if the advent calendar I bought myself. It’s a die calendar! I remembered I had it AND I remembered where I put it. ( which I posted here many pages ago Incase I forgot but I didn’t. ) I’m choosing to open it this morning while I have my tea so I can play with what ever I get today while I have time. Work days I’ll open it evenings. We are also supposed to have our first snow so my winter village IS going to be put out today. My sister hand painted all the houses and I cherish them.

Somewhere in there, Friday morning I think, I spilled something on my living room rug so that’s rolled over upside down until it dries so I don’t ruin the landlords wood floor. Despite the hot air heat it is sure taking its sweet time to dry so I couldn’t put it back yesterday when DS was here to help me lift the furniture to put it back. I don’t have a blow dryer to speed it along either. Hopefully it’s dry when my niece comes by this week.

This week I have class two nights, 2 hours away & its DS’s Birthday so it’s a busy week.

So lots going on Here thanksgiving til new year!

hop2 Love the die! Good for you getting yourself an advent calendar.

You are a very busy lady!


sleepingbooty Thanks for the challenges and fun posts! Definitely helps get me going in the holiday spirit.




December 1st is here! 😁 🎄 🎁

We're watching ELF this morning. My ds was playing with his Jack in the box during the Buddy testing the Jack in the box scene, so i snapped a photo.

And then all the holiday planets aligned and the two youngest wanted to take a pic in holiday hats. And they looked at the camera. Yay! Good photos to start the month! 😁

In the bag that had the Santa hats were our Christmas stockings. So I hung them. They're embroidered with the kids' names and really special to me.

I also pulled all the holiday children's books from the bookshelves, and put them all together between two book ends. I snapped a pic of them. We'll read them all month long.

Thanks for all the photo prompts, sleepingbooty, and for the daily prompt here. You add so much to the holiday spirit!

How fun to have a die advent calendar, hop2. Thanks for sharing the fun with us. One year a scrappy friend made one of random scrappy supplies for me, and I remember the excitement of opening a treat every morning. Had never thought of buying one for myself.

Kind of a slow day here. Kind of in a mess while I am slowly getting the Christmas decor in place. Dd has promised me a photo of their little guy discovering the LEGO she has tucked into each drawer of the advent calendar I made for him a few years ago.

Struggling with Christmas spirit this year and feeling like I'm behiond before I even get started.

Baked sugar cookies with DD13 this evening - I always forget how much I hate cutting out cookies and how frustrating baking with her is - and the lack of an oven (I'm using an electric roaster which fits ONE small cookie sheet) isn't helping. But they are her favourite and the ones she picked for the first Sunday of Advent...meant I had to dig out the cookie cutters from the Christmas boxes...given a choice we would have had either bar cookies or store-bought cookies but...she didn't want the former and I didn't have the opportunity to go to the store for the latter (not that she'll eat store cookies anyway)


I've put up one Nativity set and found the Christmas books.

DH took DD19 back to college - a less than 3 hr drive one way was over 5 hrs down and he's at 2.5 back so far and still an hour+ away.

I've managed to make ONE of the Advent ornaments for the Jesse tree. And accomplished nothing so far on my DD

(((Hugs)))

You're a better woman than me. I refuse to do cut out cookies. I bake dollops of store bought sugar cookie dough, let them cool, then let the kids (& me) decorate them with Wiltons squeeze bottle cookie icing and whatever sprinkles I've picked up and have in the cabinet.

(And I'm horribly mean because if my kid says they don't like the taste of food we have, my go to retort is, "Good, then more for me!" )


Give yourself permission to only do that which makes you smile in the of celebrating the holidays. That's what I'm doing. My year has seen death and surgeries and testings and more doctor and specialists visits for my family than i thought i could take. And we're not even done yet. This month is packed with that too.


So I've decided i am only putting the limited amount of free time and  emotional energy into that which gives me joy. Sounds corny, but i just can't do more than that. There will be easy cookies, and gifts ordered online, and lots of holiday movies watched. 

You deserve to enjoy the holiday too. 

We just got back from my in-laws house this morning and came home a little early because of a huge snow storm that was expected to come in this afternoon. We beat the snow, but it's piling up out there with no sign of stopping and my daughter is hoping for a snow day tomorrow. I am really hoping she doesn't get one though... I have the day at home tomorrow and really need the alone time to catch up on some chores, hopefully get motivated to scrap, and unwind after nearly a full week visiting family. Regardless, I'm assuming the snow is going to be my story for tomorrow! I think today's story is going to be just a summary of starting out December in Boston at my in-laws, although I didn't get a good family photo like I had hoped.

I haven't created my Day 1 page yet. Usually I'm so excited to start this project but this year I just feel... stuck. That is never who I am, but I've been going through a rough time lately so I guess that's coming out in my crafting. I also have gotten so far behind on my other projects that pushing those aside to work on December Daily seems a little overwhelming, I just wish I had a few days to sit at home alone and catch up on my crafting without having to worry about everything else!

Regardless, I'm not ready to throw in the towel on my DD... I purchased all the products, was excited when I first set up my album, my family loves the completed albums, and putting them together is often a highlight of the season for me, so I'm just going to let myself skip putting it together tonight and hopefully I'll feel more motivated tomorrow after I see other people's pages popping up.

Thanks for the encouragement. I've gotten better over the years at good-enough but this year is the first year DS will be home for Christmas since 2104 and the first year he's really getting to celebrate Christmas since then too (2015 he was at Boot Camp and 2016-2018 he was in Japan where Christmas isn't really a thing) so I feel like I need to make sure all the traditions he's looking forward to and remembering fondly happen - even if I'm not really feeling it. It's only been two weeks since Mum died and while I hadn't spent Christmas with her since before my youngest was born, it was her favourite holiday and she always went overboard with decorations and presents and ... a lot of our traditions started out as the traditions she did with us as children.

The two older ones joined us via facetime tonight for our 1st Sunday of Advent celebration -and that was nice.

I sometimes feel this way too and find that starting on the 2nd or 3rd of the month and then coming back to do the 1st helps me get past the block. For me, it's the feeling that this album could be perfect as long as I don't screw up the first page which puts unreasonable pressure on my creativity. For some reason the later days don't scare me as much (maybe because they're not the first impression?). I hope you find a way past whatever is blocking you.


I'm sorry for your loss. I can only imagine this season will be especially difficult for you and your family, and I hope you take the time you need and don't feel obligated to live up to the pressure of traditions of Christmas' past.

Today we read Christmas books 📚!

Also, I'm finding that I'm taking screen shots of movie covers to help document the Christmas movies we watch, then uploading them as pics to be printed.

As a child I always loved the Ernest series of movies, starring Jim Varney. Now i get to share them with my kids. We watched Ernest Saves Christmas last night.

Crappy virtual hugs to all of you who are struggling this year or just not into it. Sometimes that happens. And I think it's ok to put that in your December Daily. I loathe the baking aspect of Christmas. I only bake one day a year, and it's for Christmas. I do it for my kids and my husband. I'd be perfectly happy with store-bought goodies. I've tried to convince my kids that a Christmas Coq au Vin or Holiday Pasta is a better alternative. They aren't buying it.

My December has started off a bit rough. Weather delayed our travel back home on Sunday so we spent the 2nd in the car. Everything feels off and rushed this week. My AE advent calendar isn't up, haven't started on my album.

One bright spot, I decided to add funny Christmas memes to my kids' advent calendar this year. They are 15, 12, and 12, so that was a risk, one never knows how stuff like that will be received with those ages. They are loving it! Score one for the cool mom!

Sorry, janamke your December is not starting off the way you would have liked it to, but those Memes sound like a win! That's one for the book, for sure! I wish I were closer, and I would bake for you. I love to bake, especially at this time of the year. And I always do enough that I have trays to give away and to take to pot lucks and other holiday functions. But I do my baking in November and freeze it so it doesn't stress me out when things get hectic.

Thanks for the gnome alert, paperamy. Do you have a link? I will try to find those cut files using Google, but not sure I will get there. My SimonSays November kit with the gnome die has yet to arrive, nor has my order from PaperWishes with the gnome dazzles.