It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

I love Christmas. My favorite time of the year!! There is something so wonderfully magical about seeing all the beautiful lights and most of all, knowing the true meaning of the season.

Christmas was always a huge deal at our house. My parents always had such a way of making us feel special. Mom & Dad's gifts to us were wrapped under our tree. But Santa left everything displayed around our fireplace. I still remember the excitement I felt when Mom & Dad would announce that my brother, sister and I could come out to the living room and see what Santa brought. It was good being a kid! And it's even better being able to look back on fun childhood memories such as this and knowing we were so loved.

Probably one of the best gifts my parents gave us though was taking us to church each Sunday so that we could hear about Jesus. That was the most important gift of all. And it's the one I'm most appreciative of.

Anyway, so on with the excitement of this past week:

Monday night I had a fantastic time with the ladies from our church. We had a special evening of fellowship, food, singing Christmas carols... and the revealing of who our Secret Sister has been. It was so much fun!! As it turns out, the person I was giving to was the same person who was giving to me! And she is one of the sweetest ladies you would ever meet! I hope to get to know her better in the months to come. She has blessed me so much with her thoughtfulness.

On Saturday, Cheryl threw a Christmas party at the Shoppe for all of us who participated in Secret Sister there as well! Again, a great time! Of course there was eating....and these ladies sure can cook!! And we exchanged gifts with our Secret Sisters for the last time. Again, I had a sweet Secret Sister.

I thought I'd share what I made for my Secret Sister. Last year, Cheryl taught a calendar class which was wonderful. It's a calendar that hangs from a banana tree...what a fun idea!! I never got around to finishing mine back then, but decided to give it another whirl, in hopes of giving my Secret Sister something handmade. If you want to check out the class project, here is the link: http://scrapbookshoppe.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2009-02-05T15%3A03%3A00-05%3A00&max-results=20 (scroll down to the Nov. 10/08 post).

Here is the one I made:

I think the August page is my favorite. I just love all the bright colors and the cute umbrella! And lots of bling throughout which is incredibly Shelley-like! LOL If any of you are wondering, most of the embellishments I used for these pages were made with the Cricut (using many different cartridges).

Thanks for looking! Wishing all of you a fantastic week!!