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Why must December be equal parts the FASTEST month of the year, while also being the FULLEST month of the year? I make a motion for “December” to overtake “January”, so we can spread some of these things out and enjoy the holiday season for longer.
I promise, I’m not complaining! December is naturally a busy, big month for everyone – but then we toss in Leander’s birthday festivities the month just gets even better.
I normally sit down to edit these monthly family films and have about 40-50 minutes of “raw” footage to go through every month. I can typically run through it, add my music, make my adjustments, and finish these family films off in one evening.
But THIS month? Yikes. December is always my longest family film of the year (and for good reason), but I sat down with my December footage and saw that I had 2 HOURS of “raw” footage to comb through! Bonkers.
Needless to say: this film took me much longer to edit than usual. I chopped it down to 28 minutes on my first “cull”, and then got it down to 21 minutes after adding music and watching it back a second time. That’s A LOT of family videos!
But with Leander’s birthday, all the fun holiday things, plus multiple Christmas celebrations – it just all adds up.
Moments of note this month:
(0:01) While we were driving, one of Derrick’s co-workers called to tell him “Happy Anniversary” – he’s been with Shred-It for NINE years now!
(0:13) Celebrating Leander’s birthday with the extended Abbey family
(0:58) I like to do different advent calendar things for the kids every year and this year, they both had different puzzles
(1:11) Leander’s ACTUAL birthday (his birthday PARTY is in it’s own separate film HERE)
(3:17) Decorating our Christmas tree
(3:53) Braelynn got to go with Grandma and Aunt Emma to do “Sheetz Shopping” this year! Aunt Emma works at Sheetz, and every year, each store takes the money that’s been donated and buy toys and clothes for local kids – and Braelynn loved being able to go help!
(4:17) Leander got REALLY good at building his Christmas Advent puzzles!
(4:24) Our annual Rising Tide Society Christmas Party
(4:51) The annual gingerbread house and chocolate tasting party at my parent’s house! (Derrick has now won two years in a row!)
(6:51) A visit from Santa! (This particular event REALLY made it feel like Christmas!)
(7:47) First snow of the season! Braelynn is a snowman-wizard – she can build a snowman out of the least amount of snow!
(9:25) Christmas Eve Eve – our traditional breakfast and gifts at Meme and Grandpa’s house
(10:27) Christmas Eve – Paul & Naomi & the kids came to spend the day with us, plus our usual Christmas Eve traditions (Christmas pajamas, ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas)
(12:49) Christmas Day! (I still cry every time I re-watch the kids’ reactions to seeing their bikes under the tree for the first time!
(19:43) One last visit to Kennywood for the year!
(20:20) New Years Weekend kicked off with celebrating Christmas with my Mom’s side of the family
(20:50) We invited everyone over to our house to ring in the New Year!
Just in case you’ve missed what I’m doing – I decided that I wanted to create a curated “home video” for our family every month (remember those old “home movies” our families used to create? with the giant video recorders that an entire VHS tape fit in?) Those videos were fantastic, but if you’ve ever sat down to watch one (does anyone even own a VHS player anymore?) you very quickly realize that you do a lot of “fast-forwarding”.
So, my goal, is to take all the little videos I take of our family over the course of a month & create a short (my goal is to be around 10 minutes) video of my favorite snippets. I am SO excited to finally have a dedicated place to chronicle my family videos & keep them safe & accessible.
Enjoy a little peek into what our December looked like!
And with that – another year of Abbey Archives wraps up!
I now have THREE full years of our home videos documented – that’s crazy (and wonderful)! I’m so thankful and grateful for these videos that document our lives, I know I’m biased, but I think we’re pretty blessed!
