Jingle Belles 10

Rose, from Rose's Happy Place has come up with the challenge for us this week.  She was singing the song "There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays" and running through her head were memories of home which inspired her to suggest the theme for this week. 

"So this week, we're asking you to make a card that is inspired by your Home for the Holidays ... it might be your childhood home, your current home, or your home-away-from-home."

Thinking about being home for the holidays made me think of my father for a couple of reasons.  We lived upstairs from my grandparents - seven of us in four rooms, my parents included.  There wasn't much room for a Christmas tree but my father always made sure that we had one and would go out on Christmas Eve and bring home a small, sparse tree.  After our Christmas Eve dinner with my grandparents downstairs, we would go back upstairs to decorate our tree and funny, but as we got closer to completing the task, we always heard a rumble or ruckus downstairs and by the time we got down there we could see that Santa had been there.  We opened our presents on Christmas Eve, but on Christmas Day we had our stockings to go through upstairs.  Our gifts were not many, but they were special nonetheless.  I remember always looking forward to a new Nancy Drew mystery and some sort of art supplies.  

My father passed away two days before Christmas in 1998.  It was very hard for us to celebrate that year though we made the best of it, and even in the years since it has not been the same. 

I recently brought out some t-shirts that my mother had given me that belonged to my father.  I have a project planned for some of them, but when I saw this challenge and began thinking about my father, I wanted to incorporate one of his shirts into my card.  So I chose a bright red one and cut off the sleeve and got out some flower dies for the big shot.  I settled on the smallest flower from the Island Floral die and made some poinsettia-like flowers - one for each of my sisters and brothers and I.

Then I went looking for a dove and found one in SU's Peaceful Season.  I stamped that in the corner and embossed it with white embossing powder.  The sentiment is from Four the Holidays. 

My father would have liked these colors - Soft Suede and Poppy Parade.  I'm going to check out the other cards now because I'm feeling a little weepy after writing this.  Let's go take a look.