Wow. It's Almost Christmas!!

Well, it seems that we have all been pretty busy with shopping, cooking, baking, planning, partying, etc.  I can't believe Christmas is almost here.  I wanted to jot down some of my favorite Christmas traditions.

1.  Christmas Eve:  Old:  Every Christmas Eve we open a few gifts: a pair of pajamas and an ornament.  We are carrying this tradition on to our kids.  I love it.  New:  Now that our family is growing (8 grand kids in almost 4 years and one on the way) we spend lunch at the Pizza Factory and bowl after at Phat Cats.  Such a fun day out.

2.  Christmas Day:  Old:  When I was little, we used to see at least one movie in the theaters, sometimes more depending on what was out.  I loved that but haven't done it since I got married.  New:  My husbands family tradition has always been a big Christmas dinner.  Ham, funeral potatoes, green bean casserole, rolls, jello salad and Chocolate Roll for dessert.  I am very much looking forward to that.

3.  Other Traditions:  Seeing Christmas lights(Temple Square, neighborhood lights, etc.), making and frosting sugar cookies, delivering neighbor gifts, lots of Christmas music.

What are your favorite traditions?

Paper Garland

This is the easiest Christmas craft I think I've ever made and it's so cute I want to keep making them in different color schemes! I wish I could take credit for it's cuteness, but we did it for Super Saturday in my ward and I thought the Better Wives Club members would benefit from it.

What you need:

• Coordinating paper (I used 7 different patterns)
• Scissors, Cricut, OR Circle Punch (size 1 1/2 inch)
• Sewing Machine
• Cups or bowls to keep paper patterns separate (optional)

(I have a Cricut which made this project a LOT easier, but it is possible to hand cut all the circles or use a circle punch.)

Step 1: Cut out all the circles. My garland is 145 circles long, but since my paper wasn't double sided I used 2 circles each. The only ones that didn't need 2 circles were the solid cardstock colors. There are roughly 252 circles used for this garland. BUT... if you find double sided paper then you won't have to double up your circles. OR you can just leave the back sides white and not worry about putting a pattern on both sides. You can also use more solid colors than I did and that will save you some cutting. (My garland has a solid blue, a solid silver, and 5 patterns to match my tree.)

Step 2: Establish a pattern. Or don't. It's up to you if you just want to grab your circles and sew or create order in all the mayhem. Either way it'll be cute!

Step 3: Start sewing! Just feed them through one circle at a time. It's okay if there are spaces, but try not to overlap them to ensure your garland has give in it and can freely wrap around your Christmas tree.

Step #4: String it on your tree and enjoy!

Told ya it was easy! I made mine this morning before decorating my tree. And now I want to make two more to string along my windows.

Christmas Traditions

What traditions do you have at Christmas time? While traditions with extended family are great, I want to have traditions with just my husband and kid(s). Nick and I have bounced around some ideas, but most of them are still a few years away before we can do them. I'll share them in the comments!

PS. I'm not very Blogger savvy, but I discovered that if ever there's a post on someone's blog that I want to get the comments to I can have them sent to my email and not have to keep going back to that blog to find them. If ever you want to read up on other's ideas and suggestions for our club topics all you have to do is click "email follow-up comments to..." and then every time someone leaves a comment to a post it will be sent to your email. It's pretty much awesome! Then you can keep contributing to the discussions as if we were all sitting in the same room having the conversation in person during a club meeting! Yay for cyber clubs!