Have you ever participated in a Cookie Exchange? Last year was my first time, and let me tell ya folks… it is the BEST! Especially around the holidays. I am totally a baker, and I love to make things homemade. I am also a cupcake addict & I always bake some around Christmastime. But… who has the time for all of this baking? I have 2 little rottens, which means I totally over-extend myself with planning lots of fun holiday activities. By taking a few things off the to-do list, my sanity is preserved! Enter the Cookie Exchange.

The details of the Goodies Exchange that I attended this past year were as follows:

1. Our host (a good friend of mine) had everyone give her an advance idea of what we were making (to avoid having too many repeats).
2. Everyone brought 2 dozen of the same thing (i.e. cookies, cupcakes, bars, etc.).
3. When it was time to exchange… we all got a basket, went down the line, and took a few of each item (the quantity received for each item was dependent on the number of guests; we got 4-5 of each goody).
4. Take home your basket.

Easy Peasy! You get to sample everyone’s favorite Holiday goodies, with out having to go through the trouble of all the baking!

I made a layout documenting our experience last year. My daughter came with me, so we brought 2 dozen gingersnaps & 2 dozen chocolate mint tree cupcakes. Thus, the basket of assorted goodies we brought home was FULL!

[To make this page, I used the collab kit Baking Spirits Bright by Mari Koegelenberg and Valorie Wibbens]

I encourage you to gather a few family members, friends, &/or neighbors this year… and exchange away!

Please Join me over in the forum for a Recipe Challenge!

About the Author: Amie is a craft loving, dental hygienist in WA state who loves her husband, two kids (ages 7 & 4), English Bulldog, coffee, baking cupcakes, daffodils, glitter & sprinkles, reading a good book and lip gloss- not necessarily in that order.

When you are a kidless family like my man and I, Christmas doesn’t hold exactly the same magic as it does when you have kids around (or as it did when you were a kid, yourself). Looking back at my childhood, I still remember with vivid emotions my huge family gathered together to celebrate Christmas in my grandparents’ “chalet” in the Alps. My cousins and I often got the same present (to avoid jealousy)… we tried to figure out which of my uncles was playing Santa that year… and we laughed at our younger cousins when they were afraid of said Santa (forgetting that a few years before that, we were the ones who were scared!). We used to read fairy-tales, watch Disney programs, and have a “Christmas show” in which all the kids would perform for the adults. Big tables (and I mean BIG… we often were 30 or 40 people) and noisy rooms were the norm. The next day, we would get up a bit later than usual and go skiing together, even when we would have preferred to play with our brand new toys. In my dad’s family, things were much quieter with only 4 grand kids, and my cousins were much older than my brother and I. We ate the same Christmas dinner almost every year: ham with dried green beans and mashed potatoes. My grandparents lived in a small town in the mountains, so every Christmas was a white Christmas… and it was beautiful.

If you want to remind yourself of past Christmases (or memories in general!), try to use all your senses. We all have various ways to remember things, and even though visual memory is usually the strongest one — don’t forget to also use the smells, the tastes, the sounds, the feelings to bring back memories. Think of that itchy (and ugly!) wool sweater; those shiny shoes and velvet dress you wore on Christmas eve; your favorite dish from the Christmas feast; the first time you stole a sip of hot cider; the smell of fire in the chimney, or the smell of tangerines; the sound of Christmas carols; the sound of church bells ringing for midnight mass. Use all those bits and pieces as tools to jog your memory, then save those precious moments in a layout. That’s what I did here, using the fabulously-vintage kit Twenty-Five by Mari Koegelenberg.

Here are two other examples by talented TDP creative team members that show you how using all of your senses is a good way to jog your memory, even for more recent events. First, this gorgeous page by Erin (miimsgirl) using Season of Joy by Scotty Girl Designs…

Here, Erin doesn’t write about a specific past Christmas — just the Holidays in general — but she uses the same tip of putting her senses into action: the sound of Christmas music, the taste of festive snacks, the view of decorations. It’s a great way to put yourself in a Christmas-y mood!

Another example is this beauty by Heidi, using Tidings of Joy by River~Rose…

Here, again, the journaling isn’t about a specific year — but about the holiday season in general. She describes all of the pleasures of Christmas using various senses. She even added an additional dimension to her journaling by adding feelings and love, which is really the icing on the cake… or the star on top of the tree! LOL

I hope these tips will help yout dive into your memories and, using your five senses, help you document all of those precious little details which aren’t really all that little after all. 🙂

Merry Christmas in advance, everyone!

About the author: Chloé is in charge of PR and communication for her small town by day, and “by night” is a digiscrapper and photographer whenever the light is beautiful. She lives with her man and fur-babies in the small town of Alsace (in the northeast of France), where she loves to read, watch good TV shows (TWD being her absolute favorite), and just hang out with her friends — no matter if they are close by, online, or away in her Swiss hometown.

Miranda here today… and I would love to talk with you about something that really puts me in the holiday spirit and gives me the “Holiday Shivers.”

I love Christmas songs. For me… when I hear the first Christmas songs on the radio, the Holiday season starts. I love the sound of the bells that are in most songs. I especially love the older Christmas songs… like those from Dean Martin and Bing Crosby.

These holiday songs remind me of the Christmases we had when I was just a kid, when my Grandparents were still with us and Christmas was white. It reminds me of the nuts we ate in the afternoon… Christmas dinner and the candles my mom only used for those meals… etc. I think sometimes I can even smell those early Christmas days when I hear some particular songs.

My all-time favorites are Mariah Carey’s ‘All I want for Christmas is you’ and  ‘Happy X-mas by John Lennon’. Both songs bring back memories from when I was around 18-20 years old… the Christmas parties always started with one of these songs. I still have the same old feelings when I hear the first tones of these songs.

But with so many Holiday songs, I sometimes feel the need to clean up — just like I feel the need to de-clutter by donating clothing, cleaning up my closets, or selling items from my garage just to get more space. 😉

De-cluttering your music, you say? Yes! I found an article written by Courtney Carver where she gives us some tools to simplify your music. Here are some of her tips:

1. Albums — If you still have them, you often keep them for sentimental reasons… maybe in a few years you’ll feel differently, and will be able to minimize your collection.
2. Cassette Tapes — There are companies that can transfer your tapes to digital media; however, quality may not be perfect, as these tapes were not the best. But it’s likely still better to have a digital copy than a cassette copy (as you’ll be more likely to listen to it more often)!
3. CDs — Transfer your CDs to iTunes (but only those that you really listen to!). Donate the CDs you never listen to (so that someone else will).
4. Jewel Cases — For the CDs you keep… there is really no reason to hold onto the jewel cases or album artwork (unless they are collectors items); you can discard or donate them, and store the CDs in page protector albums.
5. Playlists — If you put all your music into iTunes/etc. in Step 3 (above), the best way to hear your favorite Holiday tunes is by creating playlists. You can create them for lots of reasons (not just to pull all of your holiday music together): organize them by season, or create a list for your running/exercise music, or a list of “dinner music,” etc.
6. Shuffle — Use the shuffle feature on your iPod/etc. and you might get surprised by some of the tracks you’d forgotten about!
7. Digitally De-clutter and Purge — Go through your iTunes library and permanently delete the media that you do not use and will not use. For instance… there are CDs you bought for just 1 or 2 songs (and you can delete the other 10 songs! it’s OK!).
8. Save Hard Drive Space — Rather than use your computer’s hard drive, you can use external hard drives to store your iTunes Music and save space on your computer; just remember to back up your playlists and library.

After you have done all of this, you might find that you do not want more music… but you will likely have more space to add to your collection! Or, you might just realize that you want/need more free time to enjoy your newly-simplified music collection.

Do you have any holiday music favorites? Are there any special Christmas songs that give you the “Holiday Shivers”? If so, please share your favorites with us in the comments, below, so we can can create our own “TDP Christmas Playlist”!

Enjoy!

About the Author: Miranda is mom of two teenage boys, aged 13 and 15 years old, and is also a fur-mummy for her 3 Bernese Mountain Dogs. She lives in the South of the Netherlands, close to the beach where she loves to walk with her dogs. In real life she is HSE-responsible for few companies in the construction industry. She loves to bake and decorate birthday cakes and wedding cakes; loves to read Danielle Steel novels; and has been digiscrap-addicted since 2007.