Today I’m sharing our HOLIDAY BINDER. This is an odd title and maybe you can suggest a new name after I divulge the contents. After all…the only thing I need to do is reprint a label.

This binder has pretty simple contents. It is a chronological history of our family.

Inside I have a copy of every family Christmas letter that I’ve sent since 1997. This took a little work. I had most copies on my computer and then I asked family around Christmas if they had copies of prior letters.

Some years I didn’t write a letter. 20 years of military lifestyle meant some years were very hard and I didn’t have it in me to write a sugar coated recap of a glorious year that it wasn’t! I recouped what I believe is every letter written!

The letters are accompanied by the family Christmas photo card sent that year. I love to reread the recaps from the years gone by and see how my family has grown.

I added my children’s birth announcements, our moving announcements, sadly some family obituaries and graduation announcements as well. These are inside in the binder in chronological order.

Other than holiday letters and cards I’ve included special HOLIDAY recipes. I have a recipe box but I duplicated the old family recipes and new ones that we use for Thanksgiving and Christmas in particular.

Ready to start some detective work to find cards and announcements for your own holiday binder? Or it’s never too late to start with this year.

Also- can you think of a more appropriate title for this? If so please comment!!!

Until then happy holidays~

Kristen