Saturday, December 13, 2008

Through the Years...
I wanted to start a new holiday tradition this year. Of course, it won't actually be a "tradition" till we've done it for a few years. But you've got to start somewhere, right?
I took some garland, wrapped it with ribbon and put it around our front door.
Then I found my favorite photos from this last year, resized the pictures, created an 8x10 document and arranged 6-8 photos on each page. After that I printed them up at Costco, brought them home and cut out the individual shots. Then the fun began.
We looked at each picture and I had the kids try to guess where we had been, who we were with, and what had happened that day. After we talked about each picture we hung it on the garland with a tiny clothes pin or a paper clip. It was so fun to take a look back at our year and see some of the really fun things we had done. I was amazed at how much the kids remembered! We giggled as we looked at photos from Halloween and Disneyland. We groaned a little bit over the shots from our crazy drive through the desert. We loved the pictures that showed all the fun things we had done at the beach. We smiled at photos from birthdays and scout events. We talked about friends and family that had come to visit and the great times we had with them. We had fun reliving it all. And to top it off, I think the door looks great! I love the thought of going in and out of our home through an arch of photos representing our favorite memories from the last year. Hopefully as we see these photos every day, they will help us remember how great our family is. I think this is something that we will try to do each year!
What holiday traditions do you love? Have you started any new traditions this year?

14 comments:

Yvonne said...

I LOVE HOW IT TURNED OUT. What a fun idea. Thanks for sharing. It's great to have so many wonderful memories to remember.

Kristina P. said...

What a great idea! This would be perfect for Christmas cards too.

flip flop mama said...

What a fun way to remember the year!

Anonymous said...

This turned out way cool!!!! I love it!!!!

Anonymous said...

:o)

Tonya said...

That's a great idea. It looks great and it's fun to take a walk down memory lane. I like it.

Randi said...

What an amazing thing to do!!
Extra mommy points for YOU!!!

Jean Knee said...

that is an awesome idea, I'm always looking for new things to do with our advent activities

Nancy Face said...

WONDERFUL idea! I love it! :)

... said...

what a great idea and wonderful tradition. and it looks beautiful. i can imagine how fun it must be for the kids (and parents) to look at the pictures each time they go by and through.

i think pitures are perfect to connect family to the memories and experience that make up their lives.

Kimberly Vanderhorst said...

That looks fabulous!

Anonymous said...

Boy, that's a lot of work! It turned out amazing!

Adena and Greg said...

Great idea!

wynne said...

That is a really cool idea! And it looks great, and I bet it was fun...Now, what are you going to do with all of those pictures when Christmas is over? You should keep the garland photos in a special book and keep 'em with the Christmas decorations...nah. But there has to be something cool you can do with them when the holiday's over...