Wild, Wet and Windy West

It is soooo stormy here in the west of Ireland today. Last night was pretty bad too, but it hasn't let up. Driving wind and rain - it's certainly a day for indoors. As usual, we are 'home for the weekend' at my parents house. Yesterday I cooked dinner and decided that while I was at it, I would make a lasagne for today. So no-one has to cook today and i can scrap away to my hearts content. Tony has brought Eilis for a visit to her cousins this morning so I made some Christmas cards and am doing some forum surfing. Where would I be without my daily dose!

Anyway, so far, I have managed to complete two entries in my Christmas Journal and am having great fun....although I'm wondering how the week day entries will fair out given the amount of work I have this week....and a few of the first christmas parties too....I need to learn speed scrapping methinks.





here's my attempt at a Christmas Schedule....
It's over two pages...a DLO so to speak. I'm not sure if I like the style the first few pages are taking...it's a bit sparse for me....maybe something to do with the papers I'm using? I'm more of a shabby chic kinda girl (or so I'm told LOL) and so papers like BG suit me better....luckily that's just what Beckie has in her december kit on Bumbleberry Crafts and so hopefully I'll have one in the post next week.

On to todays prompt...which probably will need a little bit more nostalgic paper anyway....

Childhood Memories of Christmas
Jot them first, then pick one or two? Or try to journal them all…

For my entire childhood we always went to my grandparents for Christmas. We loved it. The house was huge, my cousins, aunts and uncles were all there and there was always lots going on. The Christmas tree was always in the hall at the bottom of the stairs and while I don’t remember particularly being afraid going down the stairs on my own, my sisters always called in to my room so I would bring them down. Often it was 4 in the morning when we arrived in to our parents whispering excitedly ‘look what I got’.

Dinner could be for up to 20 people and was always the works….there was prawn cocktail in the early days when it was the 'in thing' ( I never liked it though), always delicious soup that we often ate in advance and had no space left for dinner….not that anyone minded. The women cooked the food, the men washed up afterwards and as the oldest grandchild I had the responsibility of minding the younger ones, assembling more difficult Santy presents, setting the table and often making place tags.

Nana has a lovely crib which she sets up on a table in the hall. The figures are all quite big, and she always waited till the 6th to put the three kings in, so over the Christmas they were left outside the ‘cave’. The cave was constructed, who knows how long ago, using a black plastic bag. The star was handmade, maybe by Conor, using matchsticks. The best part are all the other creatures like farm animals that are included as part of the nativity. Aunt Marion is the ultimate for ‘extending’ her crib. She has tonnes of animals from far and wide – camels, elephants, and some of the more common farm creatures….all visiting the crib.

Transporting bag and baggage to my grandparents could not have been easy, which I realise now and empathise with my mother given my own family’s nomadic existence for the past few years. Still, each year when it was suggested ‘will we have Christmas at home?’ it was always shot down; we wanted to go away. On our way, we would call in to Abbey. The journey was usually made with a turkey wedged between us in the back seat. Nana (mam's mother) always had a small Christmas tree on the window sill in the sitting room. We’d call again on St. Stephen’s day, when all the cousins, aunts and uncles would be there.

Now, how does one go about making a layout of that!