Christmas Card Books

I wanted to do something with the Christmas cards we receive each year, so I finally figured out what I wanted to do: I created a little book of them for each year.

 

 

 

 

I had our cards saved for all the years that my husband & I have been married, here are all 9 books I made- 2005-2013...

 

 

I wanted them to be super-simple so it's easy to make one each year. All I did was punch holes through all the cards, photos, & letters and I bound them together using gold raffia. Ribbon would have also been great. I used a 4x6 card for the front and another one for the back of each book from my Project Life kits. And I labelled them and wrote the year. It doesn't get any easier, I tell ya!

 

I used cards from the Amber Edition, the Clementine Edition, The Honey Edition, and the Midnight Edition of Project Life.

 

It's been neat looking through them and seeing the older photos of our family and friends!

This was the perfect solution in my mind since all the cards are a total variety of shapes and sizes.

They are stored in this basket for the month of December, then I can easily make a new book for 2014 and add it to the collection before storing these away until next Christmas!

 

What do you do with your Christmas cards at the end of the holidays each year? Do you toss them or do you save them??

Christmas Countdown Books- A Special Christmas Tradition

A couple years ago, our family began doing this new tradition, where the kids open up a Christmas book for us to read each day in December leading up to Christmas. I absolutely love reading a Christmas book to my kids each day and they love opening the book and the excitement of wondering which book it is.

Some time in November I bring out our collection of Christmas books. We have a variety as my kids are different ages (6, 4, 1 right now) so there are baby board books and longer stories. I plan that we read one of the Christ-centered stories on Sundays. And my son's birthday is in December, so I choose one of his faves to read on his birthday. The rest are randomly assigned a number for the day we read them.

I bought these rolls of Christmas wrapping paper to use for the book countdown this year...

I made these labels that I use each year. They are simple and I just print them out on printer paper, then cut them out with a paper cutter or scissors, then tape them on each wrapped book...

This year ordered a few new books to add to our collection, including The Polar Express, I'm excited for them to come!

I was happy to get our books all ready to go this week so we are prepared for the start of December!

It may seem like a lot to buy right away. If you want to start doing this and don't want to shell out all the money at once, look for books at dollar stores or thrift stores. I have probably bought half of ours from Scholastic book orders or school book fairs, as purchases from those allow the school to have credit towards buying more books for the classrooms and library. Bargain books from the book stores can have great options, too.

I like adding a few new ones each year and replacing the baby board books as my kids get older. 

 Again, I love this tradition!

Anyone else doing this in their homes this year?

Do you have any favourite Christmas stories? I would love some more recommendations!