Creating Christmas Scrapbooks - Sorting Saturday

Sorting Saturday  is a daily blogging prompt used by many genealogy bloggers to help them tell stories of their ancestors.

My last Saturday was spent sorting Christmas cards in one of my favourite post Christmas occupations - creating yet another Christmas Scrapbook.   It seems such a shame to bin so many lovely images that I have come up with my own way of retaining the cards for future pleasure.

I began doing this years ago when my daughter was small, with  "Gillian's Christmas Scrapbook"  (right)  a way of conveying the Christmas story,   message and traditions in a strong visual way and displaying  cards that had been spent especially sent to her.  I hand-wrote the words as this was long before the days of computers. The scrapbook came out of the cupboard every Christmas to look through and reminiscence over  and  it became part of  our family tradition.   

More years down the line, I had a growing collection of cards that I had refused to throw out, so I created something similar in a more adult version calling it "Christmas Kaleidoscope"- (above left) annotated this time by the computer, which of course made a huge difference to the style of presentation.

By then I had the bug, so the next year it was "A Christmas Anthology", (left)  using the cards to illustrate poems, songs and literature relating to Christmas.     


I am back to square one now, with a 2 year old granddaughter, so the emphasis is on cards  that will appeal to her.

My latest edition that I am currently working on is "Christmas A-Z"  (right)  focusing on a  wide range of aspects of the Christmas story.  What would I do without the internet to help with history and definitions?  

I do mean to stop - but already my mind is on next year - perhaps looking at the stories behind Christmas carols.  

Since I began, scrapbooking has become  a sophisticated hobby, but I have kept to  a very simple style with  the focus on the illustrations.

So to anyone who sent me a card, it continues to give pleasure long after the 12 days of Christmas have past.