Date Box - 12 Months of Christmas Series

I loved the idea of A Year of Dates from My Mix of Six but found it too late to create it for Christmas 2011. For Valentine's Day this year, I created my own version of A Year of Dates. I purchased a lidded basket. Inside I put a few of his favorite things and a homemade card. The card contained a simple poem telling him I would fill it with items for one of our date nights freeing him from the planning and the inevitable "What do we do??"

A Year of Dates from My Mix of Six

The Date Box

Starting in April, The 12 Months of Christmas Series is moving to my new blog, The Nomadic Homestead! I have been working behind the scenes over there since late January and it is finally up and going. I will be posting less here and more over there. Don't miss out on the fun! Come take a peak at NomadicHomestead.com.

A Photographic Gift

The saying goes "A Picture is Worth 1000 Words." That pretty much sums it up. As someone who lost most of her baby pictures when her childhood home flooded and I was away at college, photographs are extremely important to me. But I digress.

Photographs are important. My kids are in the middle of their elementary years. They are literally changing befor emy eyes every single day. I thought they changes alot as babies. But again, I digress.

Something I have been done for a good many years is to take a picture of my boys at Christmas. We haven't done the the Christmas card thing since I hand-embossed all out cards one year and then forgot to send them. I now just take a photo each each and give it as part of the Christmas gift. I like to frame them and everyone gets the exact same thing - a posed, happy, close up of my boys' faces. (Well, except for this year. Totally never got around to doing them this year. Then I thought I'd send them for Valentine's. Now I am shooting for Easter. Moving on.)

My plan has always been to display them year-round but pull them front and center to decorate my mantle during Christmas. And, now that you know I have fake families in my frames, I need to take my own suggestions.

I actually take another picture in the summer for my husband's birthday, which is exactly six months later in June. I have even taken the summer picture in the same spot for the last few years down at his parents' house. This makes the would-be display really special since we can see the growth of our boys. (Again, with the take your own advice, and frame them, Dawn!! I do have one photo of my boys in the half-bath - the company bathroom.) I love walking in there to see it and always love seeing the photographic gifts at our families' houses too.

A photograph is a gift that will be treasured. A few times over the years the photograph was the only thing we could do for our families due to finances. I plan to continue this tradition throughout the years and give my boys a set of theior own when they leave home.

Do you give photographs as gifts? Have you ever received one? Are they as treasured in your family as they are in ours?