7 Tips to make Capuring your December Memories doable!

December is such a wonderful, magical time.

Traditionally, we surround our selves with friends, family and lots of fun activities to try to push out the fact that the days are getting colder and it gets dark about 15 minutes after the kids get home from school!  So of course, as memory keepers and storytellers, we want to capture all of theses lovely memories that we are making.

A lot of us do December Daily, others do Journal Your Christmas with Shimelle or some other variations on this theme.

The problem is that there is so much going on that adding another obligation, no matter how fun and worthwhile it can cause us to feel overburdened and stressed out.

 

So here are 7 tips to help you make it easier on yourself.

1. Give Yourself Grace

GRACE is my new favourtite word, I've been hearing it a lot in the past week or so, exactly when I needed it (I've been burning the candle at both ends lately and surprise, surprise... now I'm sick!). It's okay not to do-it-all, to not hold yourself up to Pinterest standards and not to be the perfect SuperMom or SuperGrandma.  I'm going to let  you in on a little secret:  it's impossible anyway!!  That doesn't mean that you shouldn't try your best, but it does mean that you should give yourself a break when you need it and not expect too much from yourself.  Give yourself some grace.

 

2.  Minimise

Who said that your December album has to be elaborate and take 3 hours for each and every page.  If you have the stories recorded with some pretty photos and some fun memoribilia peppered throughout, then, that is absolutely perfect!

However for me, I can't seem to stop there ;) It's my style and the way I scrapbook to keep adding things and adding things and adding a few more things!  So that's why I do the minimum during December, then, I do the elaborate bits in the new year.  But, if you love to keep it simple, this may be the way for you to go!

 

3. Prepare in Advance

Now, if you haven't done this yet, it may be too late for this year to prepare in advance, but it's good to keep this in mind for futrue years.  Or you could do a little marathon scrapping this weekend and get all the foundation pages done and ready for the rest of the month.  

If you have your pages all ready come December 1, then you just need a story and a photo and you are good to go!

If you don't have your pages ready this year, then come check out the next tip ;)

 

4.  You Can Always Do it Later

For years, I've been writing down the memories and keeping memorbilia all throughout November, December and January but not actually scrapbooking it all until Janurary or even February during LOAD.  This takes off a LOT of the pressure and it's a hell of a lot more fun for me!  The only downside is I can't share my pages in December along with everyone else.  So this year, I decided to post photos of last year's pages on instagram.  If you aren't following me there, you can find me @caravincens.

I'm also taking Alice Boll's class, 'Scrapbook Christmas... in January' which leads me right into my next tip :)

 

5.  Take a Class

Classes are a wonderful way to join a community of other women doing the same project and struggling through the same hiccups as you.  Classes are a great way to motivate you when things get stressful and keep you accountable when you feel like throwing in the towel. 

As I said I'm taking Alice's class but here is a short list of one's I've taken, but there are lots of groups and challenges as well that you can join.

Ali's December daily
Shimelle's Journal your Christmas
Alice's Scrapbook Christmas... in January

 

6.  You don't need a Story for Every Day

Sure the idea is to capture the first 25 days of December, but I don't do that.  Feel free to adapt the concept to fit your needs, time, activities and creativity.  I sometimes start in November, if the Saint Nicholas festivities happen early, or at the latest November 30th when my geeklings open their avent calendars.  And I go right through to January 6th with Epiphany! They have these fabulous marzipan pies here, in my corner of Europe, to celebrate the arrival of the Wise Men.  There's a small ceramic prize inside and who ever gets it in their piece of pie is King (what they call wiseman in French) for the day.

Now, if I did a page a day, that could be 40 pages! Every day.  During the busiest time of year? NO. And what about the days where there are more than one story you want to tell. Like the day you decorated gingerbread men in the morning and got that fantastic photo of the 3 year old with his oddly decorated (and even slightly creepy looking) gngerbread man and then went skating at the city's outdoor rink, with the snow softly falling as the sun set. Do you really have to choose between these 2 fantastic stories to fit the one story a day idea?  Or do you add an extra page along side the other no-so-busy days where you are actually hunting for a story, any story, to scrapbook about. And what about Chrismas day, you can't limit that to one page, I usually have 4-5 stories for the 25th alone. I know I could end up  with an album with 50-60 pages!!  

Not. Going. To. Happen!

I suggest documenting the stories and days that mean the most to you and take the pressure off trying to find a story for the days when fewer things happen.  However!  I do suggest that you document the everyday stuff too.  At least once ;)

 

7.  Scrapbook in the Little Pockets of Time

As a mom of 6 geeklings, I've gotten really good at doing things in the 'in betweens'.  There are so many little pockets of time in your day, you just need to find them and use them wisely.  I know that you will be waiting in line at the gift wrapping station, at the post office, the register, or where ever the lines are long!  Or maybe you'll arrive early to get good seats at the school Christmas concert only to sit twiddling your thumbs for 30 minutes?

Put away Candy Crush and take along some Project Life cards and a nice pen instead.  Take this time to write our your stories in your neatest handwriting or type it up on your phone to print off later (email the text to yourself if you don't print from your phone).  If you will have more space in the places you wait (your car at school pick up or even a doctor's office), take along a small kit and work on embellishments or other small parts of your pages.

 

Capturing December memories is such a wonderful, worthwhile project and it's so fun too!  Christmas and winter products are definitely some of my favourites! Every one else is sharing their pages and it is so worth it to have it all documented, BUT go easy on yourself!  You know what you can handle, what you can get done during this busy month.  Use this as your guide and don't overload your plate.  Share in the comments below how you plan to make #decemberdaily DOABLE this year!

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You know what you can handle, what you can get done during this busy month.  Use this as your guide and don't overload your plate.

I'm ambious and I always want to do it all!  But, I know I can't. December only has 31 days, with only 24 hours each, so enjoy every moment of it, capture the best moments and scrapbook them when you can!