Your December Story | Blog Hop + Giveaway

November 18, 2013


This past weekend I got a chance to preview Lesson 1 of Debbie Hodge's Your December Story, and I want to tell you about the class and give you a peek at how it's inspired me. I'm also giving away one pass to the class. (If you already purchased the class, you'll get a $24 gift card good for any other GIS/MSD classes.)


 Your December Story is shaped around the Hero's Journey.

This December, like Dorothy dropped into Oz or Alice tumbled into Wonderland, you will receive a call to adventure. You will move from the ordinary world into a one of magic and tests as the holiday season arrives.

Many of the most-loved and best remembered stories play out in a story form described by Joseph Campbell as "the hero's journey." This class has prompts and page ideas for visual storytelling that have you telling Your December Journey, from the heralds, to the challenges, mentors, special tools and the return to the known world and what you take forward.


Take the journey AND get a $10 gift card


When you purchase "Your December Story" by midnight PT, Wednesday, November 20, you also get a $10 gift card that you can use for Get It Scrapped and Masterful Scrapbook Design classes. Click here to purchase Your December Story and get the $10 gift card.

Here is how I'm using Your December Story in my own holiday memory keeping approach...

Upon first hearing of this class I knew instantly that it would help me to achieve something in this year's holiday album that I felt like had been missing from years prior--a real sense of story.  In previous years I've approached my holiday memory keeping in a variety of ways--sometimes prepared and other times not as much.  But one thing I had never done is planned out my story approach and as a result I always felt the words that filled my albums to be lacking--in both quantity and quality.  Some years I was happy to just get pictures into my album and a date and place.

But this year I wanted something different...


On What's Different This Year...  It looks like we’ll have snow soon...the chill is definitely in the air! And it can’t come to soon for these two boys. This time last year they were building snowmen and having snowball fights. Caleb was teaching his younger brother not to eat yellow snow, while I was trying to teach Caleb not to eat snow at all! Its hard for them still,they don’t understand that the snow comes WHEN IT COMES!

My initial plan for 2013 was to take a daily approach with both my photos and my story, but after reading through the first lesson of "Your December Story" it became clear to me that this was not the only way to go and that perhaps broadening my  approach with regard to story, would help me to capture what had been missing in my previous December albums.

I feel like our family's December Story is just starting to become established and now is a perfect time to capture both the details and the depth of  our December.


On November's Challenges... November is typically a busy month for the Collard Clan. Every year I seem to cram more and more things that I don't want to deal with in December into our November. That along with the winter chill beginning to set in, makes this one of the least desirable months as far as I am concerned. It can be a real challenge to remember all the things we have to be grateful for at times. That's why we started our family's Gratitude Jar. It acts as a daily reminder of all the things we have to be thankful for in our lives.

I will be using the lessons and prompts offered in Your December Story to reflect on and record my family's holiday story in its entirety while accenting this story with my favorite photos from our day-to-day December life.  The flexibility of this approach has me excited for a number of reasons, the most appealing being that even if I forget to take a few pictures or nothing exciting happens on Day 13 or Day 22, I will still come away with a complete story of our December.





To put your name in to win the class...


Please leave a comment below telling me one thing you will be doing differently this year in your holiday memory keeping . I will draw the winner on Thursday, November 21, 2014.  And while you're at it see how others are using this awesome class AND get 20+ more chances to win by visiting the blogs below!



Thanks for stopping by!






***UPDATE***


  Thanks to all of you who joined us for the Your December Story Blog Hop and Giveaway!  The comments are now closed and the winner of my free class pass is :

Stacia H.

Thanks for hopping everyone and I hope you enjoy recording your December Story this year!!




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50 comments

  1. The one thing I am doing differently is planning and preparing more this month for my December Daily album. This year my album (hybrid) will have a mixture of photos and stories of our holiday preparation and simple, daily happenings. I also plan to feature more in-depth memories of 2013 with more detailed scrapbook pages.

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  2. One thing I am documenting differently this year is, sadly, just doing it less. I am so swamped with everything else that I can't imagine doing a December Daily album. Hopefully I will be able to catch up when life slows down. But I would love to take this class!

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  3. This year I am following a little different approach and pre creating all my templates so I can hopefully keep up and not feel overwhelmed. I love listening to you on Digital U and have learned so much from these entertaining events. Thanks for the opportunity to win this class.

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  4. What a brilliant post! This has definitely got me thinking. I had already decided that this year I want to try and go deeper into the magic of December and what it truly means to me. But I love your thoughts on challenges, and what's different from last year. Sounds like this class is going to be fab!

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  5. I am planning on trying to use a Project Life style of scrapping the holiday this year. I think it will be less stressful than having to plan each page from scratch!

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  6. Last year was the first year that I did a December project and I still have three pages to complete in it. I thought last year that I was keeping it easy but I really didn't. This year I will stick to one template pack, one paper and some brush work with date tags. I figured that simple with more focus on the stories will mean more than it taking me all year to complete.

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  7. I want to do my december daily album until the end this year !

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  8. This year I will be focusing more of the little things~Like how we ALWAYS watch Charlie Brown Christmas or how our ornaments tell stories of the year they were acquied

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  9. Amy, your post is delightful! You sure know how to write!! I love the beginning of your album. It is so thoughtful. Like you, I'll go with a broader approach this year. I hope it will help me see the big picture more than the small details which I captured in the past years. I'm very eager to see the rest of your album, and story! Here too, teaching the kids not to eat snow, but I couldn't say it as nicely as you did. Very very nice job, Amy!! xox

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  10. One thing I'll be doing differently is focusing on the memory making in December and the album making in January.

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  11. AMY!!! this is SO beautiful!!! WOW!!! and i love your thoughts on telling a cohesive story. hoping i can incorporate that idea (next year!). :)

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  12. I am doing things differently by actually having a Dec Album. I have not done that before - only Christmas layouts.
    Thank you for the chance to win a spot in this great class.

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  13. This year what I will be doing differently is documenting more than just photos from Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. More about traditions and preparations and older memories.

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  14. I'm going to try to go deeper with the stories behind our traditions - something I hope to document for my children.

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  15. This year I am not preplanning. I preplanned last year, and felt constrained. I want to allow the stories and memories to flow whether they are lots of photos or lots of journalling.

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  16. This is the first time I've recorded an actual "story" of our December - usually it is just photographs in simple photo albums. Last year it was Project Life. This year I'm thinking of using the PL format, but making it more story driven with A LOT more journaling and storytelling.

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  17. I plan to do this year's December in PL style mainly to fit it in my 2013 album. Next year may be a different plan.

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  18. I like the idea of not documenting day by day. I am so NOT the one pic, one story a day kind of gal. But I'm going digi this year for the first time. I think that'll help it happen, too.

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  19. I usually record one story a day, this year I would like to try to concentrate on each member of the family individually and tell their story.

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  20. This year what I'm doing differently - is committing to DOING IT - actually taking the time to record things. I have a son who will not be at home for Christmas and this is important to be able to share it with him. Thanks for the opportunity.

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  21. This year I plan to print my holiday layouts well before November of the next year ; )

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  22. The biggest thing we're doing differently this year is being separated... DD is away at Uni, I'm travelling while DH & DS are here at home. We'll start Advent together and be together at the end but in the middle....

    So figuring a good time to sort things out and document other things about Christmas this year.

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  23. I am doing Project Life for the first time. I also plan to involve my family in developing one new tradition to carry forward, and I will be documenting that process.

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  24. A major thing that will be different this year is everything will be gluten-free. That means finding new holiday favorites and I have been busy pinning recipes to try.

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  25. I'm trying to make all my gifts and cards this year! Thanks for the chance to win!

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  26. This year my son will be bringing his fiancée home for Christmas!

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  27. Because I plan to take the December Story journey, I hope my holiday layouts this year will share more of the in-depth stories of our holidays.

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  28. Differently, I am going to do a Dec daily.

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  29. I was planning on continuing on with Project Life for December but now I'm rethinking it and may join you all in this class. It sounds intriguing.

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  30. I just need to get to it a little earlier this year. I still have not fully scrapbooked last Christmas yet. Thanks.

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  31. This year I am keeping our holidays simpler and spending more time with friends and family and taking lots of photos. I get so wrapped up in the preparation I am just worn out by the time Christmas gets here. This year will be simple but family oriented.

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  32. Making more of the cards for pocket pages!

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  33. good question... I guess I've never done Pocket pages before, so the answer is simple, but still stirring more thoughts of what will be different...

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  34. I've never done this before so doing it would be different. Thanks for the chance.

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  35. I haven't really thought about what I'll be doing differently this year...I've made 6 Christmas Journals and each one has been slightly different. I like to go with the flow!

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  36. love how it looks Amy! can't wait for the rest

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  37. I gave up on DD after the first year. Going to give this a try this year.

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  38. The one thing I will be doing differently is capturing more story about the essence and magic of the season. Debbie's class sounds like it will help me with that. In addition, I will be having my boys (5 &7) and hubby help. They love to scrapbook with me, so we are going to work on this as a family.

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  39. I am not sure how I will display them yet but I am planning on writing more of my stories this year.

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  40. I haven't made a December daily album the past three years but this year there will lots more to scrap as our youngest will be home for the season. I'll try to keep a diary and pick out templates and a couple of kits to use beforehand. I don't expect to get a lot of pages scrapped during December but with the online diary it should be easy to pick up after the holiday season.

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  41. Oops! I left my comment on the wrong post, so here it is again: I’ll be documenting December in a Christmas Journal for the 7th or 8th year, but this year I’m incorporating it into my Project Life album which I started this summer.

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  42. I'm hoping to journal more meaningful and I'm determined to keep up with it! Last year I stopped half way through!

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  43. I will be attempting to compile a dec daily book instead of just layouts like in the past. I hope to capture more of what the meaning of the holiday is about than just the where and when. Hopefully the story will fall together as well.

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  44. Something different this year is doing a then and now book from my time growing up to now when our son is growing up comparing the traditions. Thanks for the opportunity.

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  45. I will be printing out my calendar - this has everything we do on it, and it typifies the day we have in December. Usually a CRAZY day.

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  46. I am trying to get to the 'why' of our Christmas traditions vs. simply showing the 'what,' 'when,' and 'where.'

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  47. finishing my December daily because in the past year I missed some days

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  48. Since we anticipate moving in the near future, I'm hoping to focus on some of the local festivities here and some of our favorite places.

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  49. I am going to get my grown sons to journal a little bit on some 3x4 cards

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  50. This year I'd like to concentrate more on quality over quantity as I know I will be time poor. So less pages but with all the important bits.

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This blog is written and edited by me, Amy Kingsford. I create with and blog about products, classes and services that I love and that are a good fit with my personal preferences and style. You will from time to time see posts from me with affiliate links, sponsored giveaways and reviews of products I have received for free. These posts will be clearly marked as such.

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