I did exactly what we coach people not to do, losing myself in the still new and exciting land of social media. One click led to another (and another) before Facebook (circa 2009––don't judge!) guided me to my creative salvation. I found Stacy Julian first and through her, Ali Edwards––two celebrities within the scrapbooking community. Ali Edwards's straightforward approach to memory keeping––Words + Photos––sang to me. I searched for a way to process all the new-to-me experiences, and she presented it to me on a sticker-free platter. I unleashed myself on the interweb of wonder––publishing a weekly newsletter-style update on my blog (The Beaton Beat––it's a classic), enrolling in online memory-keeping adjacent courses, participating in scrapbook-related forums, and consuming content as fast as I could find it. I was on a roll! And then, October arrived. 

I am Team Christmas: October-February. My husband is Team Christmas: Post-Thanksgiving to Pre-New Year's Eve. It's a problem, but we persevere. Okinawa was Team "You live on a sub-tropical island in Japan now. Deal with it." As my holiday spirit kicked into overdrive, without the festive societal scaffolding I was used to, it became painfully clear to me that I needed to release my death grip on past traditions and lean into the idea of rolling with the life that was in front of me. I tried to be a good sport, chuckling as I passed displays of $10 boxes of Stove Top Stuffing and canned pumpkin that was presented and priced like a $40 ceremonial mango, but my heart wasn't in it. I could feel homesickness trying to grab ahold again. I needed redirection––fast––and found it in a mini-album project Ali Edwards hosts annually called December Daily®.

December Daily® is an invitation to capture a story a day in the lead-up to Christmas, helping the holiday experience be more intentional. Ali says, "My reason for embarking on this project year after year is because it helps me create, locate, and capture joy during December, even when things feel hard." Her words resonated with me. Being a "the more holiday sparkle, the better" kind of gal, I took the idea and ran with it, ultimately stretching my Holiday Memories album from late November to mid-January. With my budding knowledge of Adobe Photoshop Elements, my newbie exuberance for digital scrapbooking supplies (Who doesn't love a free download?), and gigabytes galore of pictures, I grabbed onto this project like the metaphorical life raft it was. By the time the last of the Christmas decorations were taken down (cough, in March) I had a finished album that uniquely captured our first holiday season in Okinawa––the magical, the mysterious, and the mundane. 

After a look back through my 2009 Holiday Memories album here are some reflections, in no particular order:

• Once upon a time we had flip phones, Skype was the only video app available, webcams had to be purchased separately and then attached to monitors, "The Cloud" was a new concept, YouTube was not a thing, and digital cameras were a separate (expensive) purchase. Directions to places involved written paragraphs that included sentences like: "Go down to the third stoplight, turn left, drive until you see a bike chained to a telephone pole on your right then start counting fields. Our house is the 4th driveway after the second field, behind the yellow vending machine." Mind. Blown.

• Spatchcocking a turkey (look it up) not only helps it cook more evenly but gives you a better shot at cooking it at all in an itty, bitty oven. 

• Christmas, part 2, happened in early February because that's when the rest of the items shipped from the States finally showed up. It's a mid-winter perk we should look at incorporating permanently.

• The Air Force Tops In Blue performance was amazing! I didn't realize the program had been discontinued until I mentioned the memory to my husband while writing this article. That's an unfortunate development for those of you who are newer to the military or never had the pleasure of attending a show. 

• I had an abundance of free time (refer to the aforementioned no kids/no pets season of life) to make my creative efforts...extra. It was the first and only time, in the 15 years since, that I have documented, created, and completed the project within the same holiday season. Many of my more recent efforts resemble half-crafted thoughts bulleted in Evernote and a photo dump contained in a digital album. I'll get back to those circa 2035 when my schedule frees up a bit. 

• In a then-and-now comparison, our Thanksgiving and Christmas morning meals look disturbingly similar. I'd like to switch it up a bit but there would be absolute mutiny among my people. Holiday culinary creativity has also been put on the back burner until circa 2035. 

• Travel with just two adults was SO easy. I'd forgotten. <deep sigh>

• We apparently served a local sparkling wine at our wedding and then kept additional bottles to consume during special occasions. It was obviously important at the time because I made a special note that we drank the last bottle in our stash with our Christmas morning brunch. I, having completely forgotten all of this, am now feeling inexplicably nostalgic and may track a bottle down. 

• We misjudged the commitment level needed to get one of the 38.5 live trees shipped to the BX so hung ornaments on a tiny tabletop tree and every knob or protruding object in the apartment instead. That was the year I let go of my "It's not Christmas without a live tree!" mindset and switched to Team Fake Tree. I've never looked back. 

As I embark on my 16th year of participating in this project, I find myself once again experiencing a new language and culture. Living overseas is a firehose of firsts and figure-it-out moments but armed with a moderately well-honed sense of self and a smartphone that stomps on 2009-level technology, I feel better prepared to meet this cultural experience gracefully. And while my husband is TDY and unable to defend the pumpkins, I’ll be quietly sneaking my Santa collection onto the shelves. I believe they can cohabitate peacefully in the month of November and shall be decorating, and documenting, accordingly. 

Some tips to get you started on your own project:

• This project is for everyone! Kids are cute; I love mine always and like them usually, but my most treasured album is the one that features my pre-kid life. What you are doing, eating, hearing, seeing, saying, watching, listening to, and experiencing right now matters. Someday you will look back on it with wonder (that you lived it or that you survived it, only time will tell.)

• Write. Stuff. Down. You will forget. Don't be me and try to write it ALL down––that's madness––but do get something on record. Lists, paragraphs, quick photo captions in a smart album, blog posts, social media updates, app captures, art journals––whatever. Digital or analog––the format does not matter but capturing the moment and/or memory does.

• Time marches on and so does technology. If you are using a format or app that may become obsolete (gasp!) try to get your words and photos backed up to a second location, or go super old school and have them printed. (Double gasp!)

• I enjoy the repetition of a December/holiday project because life tends to be a little brighter for me during this season, but this form of memory-keeping can happen at any time. Pick a different stretch of time to pay a little extra attention to what's happening in your life and capture it then.

• Should you happen to have other people and/or pets in your home life, please remember that you and your story still matter. So do photos of you. Include them. 

Something is better than nothing. Seriously. It all counts and you can make it whatever you want it to be. 

December Daily® is a registered project by Ali Edwards, not the result of my own work. 

Find out more on her website here: www.aliedwards.com 

About the Author

Sierra Beaton is a prolific reader, writer, and memory keeper. She enjoys capturing daily life through photography, regularly subjecting her family to new recipes, making friends out of strangers, and is easily distracted by plants.

As a seasoned military spouse, mom to three kids, and generally curious individual, she's had the opportunity to learn a lot of things she never knew she needed to know. She enjoys sifting through her lived experiences and sharing her observations with others.