Merry Christmas, Etc.

Wow! It's Christmas Eve!

I am so excited! All of my children, their spouses, and my sweet grand baby are all here! Everyone arrived on December 22, and they will all be here until New Year's Eve. My house is so full and so is my heart.
Here are some random pictures of our last few days.

Sweet Baby Mae!

She is 4 months old today. This is her sitting in Aunt Leah's lap last night. She does so well with large crowds of lively people over here. She just lets people hold her while she smiles at everyone!

 Annual sugar cookie decorating.

 I set up my crib Saturday. Mae had been sleeping in a pack n play, but Julie needs that for an upcoming trip, so I got out the crib. It was stored behind my Christmas decorations, so I had planned on getting it out in December anyway. 

I could not find my baby bed bedding that I used for Leah. It is pink and green, and so pretty and girly. I cannot imagine where I put it or why it is not in a labeled box in my storage room. I did find this boy bedding that my mother made for Sam. However, the bedskirt and diaper holder that hangs on the crib were not in the box.....it's a mystery! I guess I am not as organized as I thought!

 Even though it is blue and not pink, I think Mae likes it! She has slept well in there the last two nights.

 Our Christmas tree, side 1

 and side 2

Ten people will be opening gifts here on Christmas morning, and we all have gifts for each other, so the tree is pretty full. I am so thankful for my large family. It is my greatest blessing on this earth. I thank God in my prayers to Him every day for giving me the privilege of being a wife, mother, and grandmother. I am so grateful.

 Benny the elf.

That elf. Sometimes he moves, sometimes he doesn't. 

 Sweet baby Mae!

 Our Christmas card tree

 Sweet baby Mae again

My favorite Christmas shirt this year.

I may wear it one more time today.

Merry Christmas to you and your family!

Love from the Joyful Johnsons!

Christmas Planning Binder

I wanted to share a little bit about my Christmas Binder. (I know I should have shared this much earlier, but maybe you can glean some ideas for your Christmas planning for next year.) 

***Also, I know that I blogged about my Christmas binder in 2016, but that was two years ago!

I first began keeping a notebook in the year 2001, and I switched to a binder in 2007. It's just a 3 ring binder with dividers that I made by typing the categories on cute Christmas paper and laminating them. My first binder is now completely full, so I made a new binder this year and titled it "Christmas Binder 2". The sections in my binder include:

I began keeping a spiral bound Christmas notebook in 2001. In 2007 I switched to a 3 ring binder with the following dividers:

Gifts:

• This section is subdivided by year.

• I create a document for each year in a table format with the following columns: To, Gift, Bought, Wrapped. I list the recipient's name and the gift. Then I put an x when I buy (or make the gift), and an x when I wrap the gift. On the pages that I create for my children, I make one page per child. I print this out to use as I shop and wrap, but when it's all done, I print out one final clean copy to include in my binder. I love looking back over the years at the gifts I have shared with my family and friends. This also prevents me from giving someone the same exact thing I gave them last year! I also love to look at what I gave my kids in years past, especially when they were younger.

Addresses:

• I print out my Christmas cards address list each year and make any corrections or additions. Then I print out one more final copy for my binder. I am not sure why I feel the need to have a hard copy in my binder....I guess that's in case my computer crashes. 

• I also make a list of addresses for any parties that I send invitations.

Parties:

• I keep copies of party invitations in this section.

• I also keep guest lists for various parties here.

Food:

• This section has recipes for all the Christmas goodies we make and share each year.

• I include menus and recipes for Christmas meals and parties.

• I make labels for the homemade treats we give to others, and I have the master copies of those labels in this section. I like to put who the goodies are for on these labels. This helps when distributing them.

• A new addition to this section this year is I am going to list what foods I take to various gatherings. I think this will be fun and useful to review each year. 

I have included some pictures below, but first I must share my crazy idea from last year. I saw on Pinterest where some ladies were making their own super cute Christmas notebooks, and I thought, "I should totally do that! In all my spare time!"

And so I did. I ordered a personalized notebook from Erin Condren. I clicked on all my cute Christmas notebook pins on Pinterest, and I spent hours crafting this beautiful notebook. Complete with a table of contents, cute stickers, and red and green pens. It turned out great!

Except that I still used my binder as well. I could not resist having copies of everything I recorded in my cute Christmas notebook in my binder too. So, while I enjoyed the festive notebook, I went back to my trusty Christmas Binder this year. I did use the Christmas notebook this year for some list making, and it is good to carry around for that, but my binder is a keeper. 

The Erin Condren notebook I used last year

a divider in the notebook to keep me in place

from the notebook

I had a page for each person.

recipes for my binder

binder dividers

my original binder

my current binder

And that's it! That's how I organize my brain during the holiday season.

Our Thanksgiving Weekend

Our Thanksgiving week was overall just delightful! Our family (minus Olivia and Brian who stayed in Indiana to celebrate Thanksgiving with Brian's family) enjoyed each other's company so much! We  ate a lot of good food and were able to visit with much of our extended family. We put together a difficult nutcracker puzzle which I plan to frame. We have started another puzzle, but interest has waned since the holiday has ended. I keep a Christmas themed puzzle going on our dining room table during the holiday season. I think I am going to frame all the ones we put together this year and hang them during December each year.

Clay's friend, Lauren joined us for a couple of days at the end of their Thanksgiving break. Leah, Sam, and I took them to the airport in Memphis last Monday, and after dropping them off we did some Christmas shopping (mostly for Mae!) at Target. I had so much fun buying baby things!

Another highlight (or should I say lowlight) of our Thanksgiving break was that half of our family got sick! Big Sam, Julie, Leah and Sam all had some variation of a stomach virus, fever, and aches and pains. Thankfully, Jimmy, Clay, Lauren, nor I got sick! We watched several Christmas movies during the time while the sick people were feeling poorly. Clay and Lauren tried to stay away from everyone, so I gave them the task of preparing my Christmas cards! I was so grateful they did that for me. I got them in the mail last Friday.

After spending last Tuesday cleaning house all day, we got back to school. We will continue our schoolwork until December 14, and then Yay! Christmas Break!  We will resume our school on January 11. I am really looking forward to this extended break.

I wish we could be in full holiday mode right now! But I must stay strong and keep doing school until next Friday.

Here are a couple of pictures from my Thanksgiving Day table.