It is holiday season here in the US. It kicks off with Halloween and rolls right into Thanksgiving and Christmas time. The dividing lines between the holidays seem to get blurrier every year. It can be a celebratory time for sure, a frantic time for many and for many more it can be a difficult time as well with family and friend dynamics/histories/losses playing into emotions. (I don’t even want to get into the ongoing pandemic factoring into the holiday season.)
So… let’s take a step back from the holidays and think about the celebrations we can honor in our every day lives. In fact, Nikki’s post earlier this month lead us through slowing down to celebrate being in the moment. If you need a break from the frantic, be sure to check out her post!
While I’m slowly learning to honor the individual moments, I have much more skill in recognizing the daily-life celebrations. I want to share a few of my layouts that focus on every-day life. Don’t worry though, I will still give you tips that can apply to your holiday festivities.
Let’s start with the layout I made specifically for this post. I do have a layout process video up on YouTube if you enjoy watching a page come together.
It is true that the pandemic has changed so much of our daily lives for the past year and a half. If you have school-age kids, you’ll know that the online schooling was, for lack of a better word, different. My youngest handled it all very well, but being an extrovert, she really missed seeing all of her people in person. When she was able to go back to in person learning there was a lot of happy dancing — only in masks, and from a distance. LOL. Since I had to either stand behind the sidewalk or even sit in the car to take my pictures, that is exactly what I did. The pictures are imperfect, but that is really just part of the story. I’m celebrating imperfect pictures over no pictures at all!
CELEBRATION TIP:
The holidays are full of hustle and bustle. If your pictures end up less than perfect due to motion blur or low lighting, use them anyway. Use arrows and labels to literally point out the important people/things.
Next up is the celebration of friendships and how they shift and change. This layout talks about what came in the past and where the future is headed. I love to document the people in life right now because you never know what will—or won’t—change!
CELEBRATION TIP:
Are you with the same people each year at the holidays? Or, do you mix it up every year? While this layout isn’t a timeline layout, it can easily be turned into a timeline. It is a great way to capture a span of years on one layout: what stays the same or what changes over time. Since each photo sits in it’s own zone, you can easily use a bold/large stamp or stickers to add the photo’s date to show the flow of time. Need more timeline layout ideas? Episode 51 of the ScrapHappier Podcast covers that topic. Did you know that it is really easy to listen to the episode just by clicking the link above?
In this layout I document a small quirk of my cat. Documenting all the things that seem “perfectly normal” is important to me since I know this won’t last forever. Some day I may forget that this cat begged to drink out of the faucet.
CELEBRATION TIP 1:
Do you have holiday traditions that seem perfectly normal? Even things that feel like “everyone does that”? Go ahead and document them. You may be surprised years down the line to see either 1) How long you’ve been following the same tradition or 2) That something that seemed so steadfast has actually changed.
CELEBRATION TIP 2:
Are there ways you celebrate that seem totally quirky? Those are great stories to tell too! You could even compare and contrast typical traditions with your own versions!
Okay you got me, this one IS a holiday celebration. But, since this was New Years heading in to 2021, the holiday was very different from previous holidays… and so much more like every day life. (2020 sure was a year of monotony in many, many ways!) I had to document the small ways that we tried to make the holiday different from regular days.
CELEBRATION TIP:
Record the small details! Take photos of decorations or food or any small element that might be overlooked in the bigger picture. If you don’t have photos of those details you can always use list journaling to capture the little things.
And here is an actual start to a holiday layout. Happy Thanksgiving to our US readers. Happy autumn/spring to our international readers, depending on your hemisphere. We are thakful to bring you crafty inspiration every month. Next month here on the blog, we will be talking about CONNECTIONS as much of the world celebrates various December holidays!