A few more of my favorite things. / December 16, 2013 by jen geigley

We're down to the wire, folks – there are only nine days until Christmas! But I love taking in all of the holiday fun and celebrating the season with the people around me. I think the kids and I will be baking cookies tonight and I can't wait. I also can't wait to show you some of my favorite holiday-related things. Like the cool customizable holiday prints from my friend Chrissy at Domestica, shown above. (They're on sale for only $10!) Read on to see more of my faves.

Adorn your tree with these geometric ornaments from SketchInc.

I love Purl Soho's beautiful Learn to Knit kit.

Who can resist these bold black and white gift tags and gift wrap (that you can download for free) from Hey Look?

These bright and lovely felt ornaments from Purl Bee are a treat.

And after running into Oliver Jeffers at a book signing in NYC a few months ago, I have become obsessed with his books. I'm giving a copy of The New Sweater to the kids for Christmas. If you want to see how cool and talented this guy is, watch this video.

If you have a skater in your life like I do, check out the re-issue skate decks, the documentary and skate gear featuring everyone's favorite skateboarding legends at Bones Brigade. You can even download a free copy of Animal Chin. Which is completely awesome.

Everyone loves Field Notes. And Field Notes pens. And Field Notes pencils.

And last but not least, more free printable gift tags from Hey Look. I found these a couple of years ago and they've been my favorite ever since.

Hope you're taking a minute to embrace and enjoy all of the holiday-ness these last few days before Christmas brings. It's a busy time but always so much fun! Enjoy.

our Advent calendar / December 2, 2013 by jen geigley

For the past few years, I've been trying to find the perfect Advent calendar. I was going to make one. And then that never happened. I was going to buy one, but it had to be just right. I wanted to be able to put almost anything inside each compartment – tiny toys, notes, treats, whatever. I wanted something that wasn't too small. I didn't want it to be massive. I didn't want it to be fragile. And then, for my birthday last year my sister-in-law surprised me with the perfect Advent calendar.

I'm not sure if this exact style is still available, but she gave me this gray linen pocket calendar (from Land of Nod) that hangs from our metal fireplace mantel with four magnets. It's perfection.

I filled it with some small surprises (mostly from the Target dollar spot, mixed with other things I already had around the house.) We've always used Candy Cane Hershey kisses in our Advent calendars past. (Lo started calling them 'mintys' when she was three years old. So they're a keeper.) And Lo dances in The Nutcracker each year, so I always get her an ornament with the name of her part + the year written in Sharpie on the back.

For the rest of the days, I made little activity cards. (I think I found the perfect use for Project Life grid cards ... these worked so well.) I'm not doing an activity every day of the month ... I'm only human, after all. But I made a bunch to choose from and will stick them in pockets when I can, depending on what we have time to do each day/evening. A lot of these activities will depend on the weather. I made one for a snow day in case we have a snow day. Ice skating, snowman/snowcat making and sledding, too. Making the memories is way more fun than the tiny toys, in my opinion. Although Lo is a big fan of Silly Putty.

Now I just have to make sure the kids don't peek. Bowie hasn't even tried to pull this down yet, surprisingly. I love our family traditions and celebrating each day of the holiday season by trying to make it a tiny bit extra special. Whether it's making cookies together or reading a Christmas book at bedtime, it's time spent together and that's the best part of all.

EOTS / December 18, 2012 by jen geigley

If you're not totally elfed out this season, here's what our friend has been doing at our house the past couple of weeks. (He's obviously a skater.)

He brought us a gingerbread house kit to work on. (He got it at JoAnn's with his 40% off coupon.)

Then, he was nice enough to build the gingerbread house and let it dry overnight so we could skip ahead to the decorating. He also made a tiny flat roof house out of graham crackers. And collected all of the leftover candy that we had hoarded from Easter and 4th of July parades.

He loves Vespas.

He drinks syrup.

He has marshmallow snowball fights with his elfin friends.

He dug out a pile of Christmas books to read under the tree.

And he brought the kids elf pajamas. From Old Navy. I mean ... the North Pole. That I made them wear to the mall when we visited Santa.

He brought Lo some craft supplies and made a banner.

And he brought us a Santa spatula and snowflake cookie cutter so we could make cookies.

And some candy canes!

He got Lo's skates ready to go on the morning of her Girl Scout ice skating party.

And he was cold one night, so he wrapped himself in toilet paper.

So that's what he's been doing. I have to admit, I'm a little bit elfed out. But it is fun. Only a few days left! Are you running out of ideas? ;)

Journal Your Christmas/December Daily (in two hours) / December 31, 2011 by jen geigley

Last night, I took a look at a sad little pile of papers and pics on my desk and decided I had to tackle this project once and for all. For the past four (or five?) years, I have done some kind of variation of a Journal Your Christmas + December Daily book, but things got a little nuts this year. My 'pile of December' got pushed to the side. I had already concluded that my little tradition just might not happen this year.

If you're like me, after the holidays hit and January begins, Christmas is sooooo over. So I knew I had to do this fast, if I was going to do it at all. Like, in one night. So I cut and glued and made this happen in two hours last night. For realz.

All during the month of December, I had taken pics of the process of holiday magic. I had even snagged one of these rad mini journal kits from my good friend, Jamaica, to make things easy. I had printed photos every week or so from Instagram or iPhoto on contact sheets, so they were small enough to fit on the little pages. So when I finally sat down to work on this, it was actually pretty easy to throw together. (Click on pics to see them a bit larger.)

I didn't use any Christmas paper or stickers (except the ones that were included in Jamaica's little kit.) I didn't put dates on every single page, and I didn't write notes on every single page. But I'm so glad I threw these pics together and that I can stick this book next to the others on a little shelf so we can look back on what made this particular season in this particular year so special. Every Christmas is special.

So, if you're like me ... don't worry. There's still time to throw something like this together. Go print out your Instagrams, Facebook pics or cut up some of that holiday memorabilia that you have collected over the past month. That is my little nudge of encouragement for the day. ;)

Happy New Year's Eve!