There’s something satisfying about tying the ribbon and putting the wraps on the story of December 2016.  Though I’d really finished it a couple of days ago, it was only this afternoon that I cleaned up a couple of pages and put the finishing touches to it and declared it complete.

I’d say it’s “comfortably stuffed”, to use a phrase I always attribute to a dear and long departed WI Craft Judge from Cheshire, who trained with me and who had the most delightful way with words.  Please note too, the pristine and rather swanky new cutting mat which Bettine gave me for Christmas.  I’m a lucky girl – it’s a full A1 size and with inches on one side and centimetres on the other, it fits the bill perfectly.  I’ll try not to drill holes it!

I kept my journal pretty simple this year.  I was going to write more but decided to stick to the visuals in here and write the stories in my Project Life album, which I keep more to myself.  My Christmas journals – and this is #14 – are in a large picnic basket and are often enjoyed by friends and family when they are here.  It’s always fun to look back and remember.

One thing is always staggering: How quickly the month passes and how the non-Christmassy events of the first few days soon morph into the full blown “most wonderful time of the year”.  So the month begins with a meeting on what turned out to be one of the few frosty days.

I try to identify what makes this particular year different from the others whilst still alluding to our own family traditions.  When Edward and Amy told me they had bought their first Christmas tree then, I decided to make some straw stars for them and sew them some Christmas napkins for their dining table.  Another page done!

This year, I chose to make my book 6 inches square for no other reason than I had a 6 inch square pad of cute paper I wanted to use.  It meant that I could print some full page pictures quite easily, then.

Not all the full page photos are mine though, and where I came across a catalogue or magazine photo I liked, it was trimmed to size and included too.

Of course the photograph on the 6th was the same as every year: Paddington and Aunt Lucy, “dressed in Holiday Style” for St Nikolaus.

And so the pages continue.  I didn’t preplan or prepare at all, but took each page as it came, feeling quite pleased when the end result turned out ok.

I finished with one last tradition – a memory of a Christmas past.  This year, it was a photograph of my Grandparents and I at the Christmas dinner table in a local hotel on the outskirts of Hull.  In 1967, I believe my Aunt thought it was getting too much for Nan to cook Christmas dinner for the whole family and I expect neither she nor my Mum were willing to take on the task.  So, a table was booked for a dozen or so and there we were, not looking very happy, I’ll admit!  But what I notice is that each year I have to look a little harder for a different photograph to include, because not only do I have just a few, there are no more where that came from.  For some reason, it struck me this year that the photographs I have of those days and those people are the only ones there will ever be and though the pictures I have in my head might be as clear as they always were, sadly they can’t be placed into a journal.

I think December 2016 might be a little more fully recorded.  I note that I took 507 photographs last month, not all of them are in the journal though!