A Survey: Do You Keep A Christmas Journal?

14 years ago

Judging by the posts in my Christmas Decorating survey thread, some of you do. Me too! So, in an effort to tweak mine/ours with new ideas, here's a new survey:

If you keep a yearly Christmas Journal,

1) What do you keep it in? A nicely bound notebook, ring binder, computer program or what?

2) What lists do you keep in it? (Christmas card list? Gift lists? Etc.)

3) Do you write yourself a Christmas letter or a post-Christmas letter? Do you keep it in your journal to reread in later years?

Lynn

My own answers . . . and now you can see why I'm asking ;^D

1) What do you keep it in? Nicely bound notebook, ring binder or what?

* I keep so much info in my journal, it's now in a heavy 4" ring binder . . . and growing! A ring binder because I'm O/C enough that I want to be able to edit and don't like messy pages. This will be my 26th year of keeping it and I love being able to go back and read my entries from other years. Already, my kids enjoy reading about their early Christmases and it's my hope that someday my future grandkids will enjoy it as well.

2) What lists, etc. do you keep in it? (Christmas card list? Gift lists? Etc.)

*I have dividers with sections for:

~ Christmas cards sent & received

~ Our annual Christmas letters that I send out in our cards (a short,chatty, fun one with a few family photos embedded in it, not one of those tedious, braggy ones)

~ Gifts given (so that I don't give the same gifts again; I have such a crummy memory!)

~ Gifts received (great when it comes to writing my thank you cards!)

~ New decorations purchased that year (I really need this around the following November as, by that time, I've forgotten what I bought the previous year!)

~ Things needed or wanted for next Christmas Season (for example, that I don't need any more wrapping paper, but will need more medium-sized gift bags and some red ribbon . . . but no more green! Or that we'll need two more strings of lights, etc.)

~ My kids' annual wish lists. They're 25 & 15 y/o now and I still keep them every year. I love going back and rereading the ones they wrote, especially when they were young. They're so cute and funny and their little drawings and funny comments are priceless for me/us to see now)

~ Each years' Christmas Eve's dinner, Christmas Morning's Breakfast and Christmas Day's dinner menus . . . and comments about which what went over well and what I need to change next year.

~ And last but certainly not least, my annual letter to myself that I write every year on December 26th or 27th. See #3's answer for details ;^D

3) Do you write yourself a Christmas letter or a post Christmas letter? Do you keep in in your journal to reread in later years?

* Yes, I write one to myself every year right after Christmas while everything's still fresh in my memory. I keep them in chronological order in my journal, going back the entire 26 years of my marriage. I recap what happened during the holidays, good and bad. I also ALWAYS chide myself about getting too worn out stressing about the cleaning, the decorations, the baking, the last minute gift buying, etc. The letters have actually helped me a lot, especially in keeping the true meaning of the holidays in proper perspective, as it was getting out of hand up until the last year or so.

So, I'd love to hear abut your own Christmas Journals and maybe get some ideas to refine my own.

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Comments (9)

Purplemoon
14 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Oh how I wish I'd done this all these years! It would be wonderful to read about past Christmas' times, especially now all my kids are grown with their own children!

The only thing I've done the last few years is keep a list of gifts given to family and friends, as my memory stinks and I don't want to repeat gifts. As of last year, I also am keeping a list of where I've stored stuff. With things scattered around closets in the house, bins under my bed, bins in garage and storage shed, I now want to know exactly WHAT is WHERE.

This year I am going to list and photograph my Christmas decorations as I unpack stuff, and am getting pictures of new purchases of course. As you know I take pictures of my house decorated, but I'd rather have better organized photos of collections and ornaments. (Maybe if I look at my photos this time NEXT year, I'll do less impulsive buying.
I love Christmas things too much, LOL. Hard to resist.)

I am going to suggest to my grown kids to think about starting journals while they still have young ones!

hugs, Karen
kathleen_li
14 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
I have a Christmas card list
And a journal where I write what I need to change for the next year.
Nothing elaborate.
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oreos_mom
14 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Lynn,what a wonderful treasury of memories ! Like Karen, I wish I too had done this when my children were small. Now they're grown up with babies of their own. But.. there's nothing that says I can't start keeping journals now :>)
And Karen, photographing everything as you take it out is a fantastic idea ! I'm probably the world's biggest impulse buyer and that would sure help to curb the habit ..lol !
Susan
patty_cakes
14 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
I love the idea, just not the time. I'm on overload getting decorations up(7+trees!), cleaning house to get ready for family coming from out of town, planning a neighborhood party, shopping for food, etc., shopping/wraping *other* gifts, buying/wrapping/sending out-of-town gifts, writing out/sending cards, and baking candy/cookies.

This year i'm adding, decorating my space at the antique mall, shopping for Christmas vintage items, re-arrangeing the space and adding gift items.

Last but not least, I hope I have time to shop for something new to wear on Christmas day. ;o)
hi2all
14 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
I mentioned my Christmas Journal in another post.

Mine was always a pleasure to do. It was rather simple, a red cloth-bound book with blank pages. My entries were what the weather was like, who was there, the menu, special moments, the fun things, like the little kids playing with the boxes their toys came in, instead OF the toys. My family was big on special food treats reserved just for Christmas, Japanese Fruit Cake, fudge and other goodies. I packed the journal away with the Christmas dishes, most of which were gifts. Before I had Christmas dinnerware, I always kept the journal in the flatware chest.

My Christmas card list was not kept in the journal. It had it's own place in my address book. The journal was just for Christmas Day.

Lee
jaybird
14 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
1) What do you keep it in? A nicely bound notebook, ring binder, computer program or what? Computer program, to whick I add new ideas year 'round.

2) What lists do you keep in it? (Christmas card list? Gift lists? Etc.) Christmas card lists, storage locations, gift list of already purchased items for upcoming year, gifts and decorations.

3) Do you write yourself a Christmas letter or a post-Christmas letter? Do you keep it in your journal to reread in later years? I have written a Christmas letter for the last 44 years...a couple of them have been lost, but I have most of them in a manilla envelope in the file cabinet. I have been considering scanning them into a computer file and saving. It would be a shame to lose them now.....
cinlo
14 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
I have not kept a Christmas Journal, but I should start this year. It sounds like such a great idea and what a way to preserve memories!
I do have a list of those we send Christmas cards to. In fact, we send so many, to save time a couple of years ago, I saved them on a word label file so I just print them out to attach to envelopes. Not very personal I know, but it has been so helpful!
luvstocraft
14 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Lynn, what a neat thing that you can refer back to through all the years of Christmases past. Wish I'd have heard about doing this when my son was young. I was thrilled that my DIL loves taking pictures and scrapbooking, so she is putting together really nice albums of all our holidays including Christmas. I'll mention the journaling to her in case she might want to add some of those types of details in her albums. Luvs
phonegirl
14 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Lynn, Afrer reading your post I can see alot of us starting a journal. Thanks for the inspiration. Enjoyed reading the others posts here and will try to make it back later on. Punk

A Survey: Do You Keep A Christmas Journal?

Comments (9)

Purplemoon

kathleen_li

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