what's ♥YOUR♥ favorite holiday tradition?

that's the question we're asking this fortnight at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ as suggested by our lovely guest star marie bingaman! i really loooooooooove this idea, and have spent the week thinking about all of the fun traditions of my childhood, and even some of the newer ones that jeff and i have begun since we've been married. there are almost too many to just choose one!

finally i settled on the annual reading of clement moore's "twas the night before christmas" which started when i was tiny and continued until the last of my siblings moved out on their own. at first it was my father who read the story, then each of us children in turn as we learned to read. by the time we were five or six, we all knew it by heart... i still do, actually, it's the only long piece of poetry i can recite without any hesitation! :) as an adult, i collect copies of the storybook, and have a few lovely vintage ones. for my card, i scanned and slightly re-sized a page from one of my favorite versions, a 1953 "tell-a-tale" edition that gina found for me at a thriftshop. the illustrations are by a woman called zillah lesko, and i absolutely *LOVE* them!

(scanned and re-sized page from a vintage copy of "twas the night before christmas" written by clement c. moore, illustrated by zillah lesko, printed on matte cardstock and mounted as a faux polaroid on a scrap of ranger's glossy white cardstock; patterned paper: we r memory keepers, crate paper, echo park; chipboard stickers: my mind's eye; deco tape: making memories; clear sentiment sticker: oriental trading co; ink: colorbox; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape, scotch gluestick, sewing machine)

i used the current retro sketch (#88) for my layout, and i'm quite pleased with the results!

and now, i hope you'll hop over to ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ to see what marie and stephanie have made, whilst planning your own gorgeous holiday tradition card! ♥♥♥