Happy Friday, everyone! I find myself getting really emotional this time of year and just so appreciative of the gifts we have been given. I can’t believe Christmas is just days away. This time of year is so special and magical and I wish I could hold onto it forever. I wanted to share something today that is very near and dear to our hearts. We started a Christmas album some years back. In fact, the first begins with a Christmas card that has just my husband and me well before babies. It’s never too late to start something like this and if you are looking for an easy way to capture fun Christmas memories this may be it. 
The album is just an old school scrapboook album. Mine is read leather and is 12 x 12. I only do two pages for each Christmas. How easy is that!? It doesn’t take long at all. 
On the first page of each year, I include our Christmas card and then little photos of Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. I love seeing the kiddos and what they looked like opening gifts. I also include a couple from Christmas Eve that we snap after going to church. 
On the adjacent page, I slip in a piece of decorative scrap paper and a letter that Santa writes to my children each year. He is quite the prolific writer! What, you didn’t know? The letter is hidden under the tree and is the last thing we open. He does such a great job of recapping the children’s year and what activities he saw them doing. He lets them know what he was proud of and why they received the gifts they did. He also lets them know the traits he admires. . . such as being kind to one another or helping a friend at school. Of course he thanks them for the treats that were left out as well! For us, it’s really nice way to recap the year in one page. 
The above photo is priceless to us. It’s the year Santa brought Riley a white wedding gown for dress up. She put it on immediately and wanted to marry daddy. LOVE. 
And I do not put a ton of pressure on myself with this. In fact, I just did last years pages two days ago. But it’s such a fun book to flip through during this time of year. We put it up on a shelf where we don’t look at it throughout the year. It makes it that much more special and exciting to get it out each December. What about you? Do you have a fun way of capturing this special time? I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. We are getting ready to celebrate with dear friends this weekend. I am ready to put on my party dress! …………….merry weekend
This is such a great idea Courtney! My husband and I got married two years ago. It would be a lot of fun to start this now and watch our family grow over the years! Hope you have a great holiday!
-Sarah
limitedspaceorganizing.blogspot.com
Oh, I hope you do it! It's really been so much fun. We love looking back!
Love this idea Courtney, so special!
Thanks, Kelly! Merry Christmas
What a great idea! How special to have that book to pull out each year & relive last year's holiday season!
Thank you! We cherish looking through it. The kids think it's so fun to look back.
Wow I love this idea!
Thanks, Sarah!
Beautiful Courtney. I have saved all of the girls christmas card photos, santa photos and letters to santa (including a map they drew one year so he would know to leave some presents under their playroom tree, LOL). I have been meaning to put a book together for each of them. This would be the perfect thing! The girls and their dad also give me a silver frame (almost all have a heart on them somewhere) from Brighton each year to hold their Christmas picture. They are proudly displayed on my library shelves.
what a sweet thing to write a letter from santa chronicling the kids' kind things they did. I love that. and i love that it's a simple two pages. if i took more pressure off of creating a perfect scrapbook i might actually do it!
Oh my goodness! The letter FROM Santa is so precious! I love that you family does that each year!
I love this idea, I was just thinking about how I need to find some place to put our Christmas cards from each year. I will be borrowing this for sure! 🙂
What a beautiful gift to your family, a true heirloom…
Merry Christmas,
Linda at Beautiful Ideas
I have been keeping our christmas cards since our kids were born, but I love the idea of adding pictures from Christmas Eve and day. And the letter from Santa is great! We also have a journal where we record our meals, who we were with, and special traditions, but I love the visual aspect of this — and how easy it is! Thanks for sharing!
What a wonderful traditional, I love it!!!!
This totally made me want to cry. What a special way to capture memories that are all but forgotten, as they grow so dang fast. They're going to LOVE having this as adults.
This is SUCH a great idea! This is our first year as a married couple, we didn't do picture Christmas cards 🙁 because I didn't want to bombard people with wedding photos. The thank you card was plenty (in July-ish) and I just sent snoopy cards this year haha. I can't wait to start this tradition with my husband though, I am really glad you posted this so I don't forget to take pictures. We are hosting our family here on Christmas Day too, so it will be extra special in our new home as a married couple for our first married Christmas <3
Love this idea.
I just got married this year and I love the idea of starting this tradition. What did you include before you had kids since you didn't have the santa letter? I'm scared it will look awfully empty without that.