It's Black Friday!!!!

Yippie it's Black Friday!!! I hope you are able to get some great deals today...both in and outside of the digi world!!!

Well of course ScrapMatters is having a Sale!! Check it out the ad so you don't miss a thing!!! Everything at ScrapMatters including my shop is 40% off today...so nows the time to grab some goodies at an awesome price!!

For a limited time I even have a Black Friday Grab Bag in the store....take a look...


...so get it while you can!! Click here to purchase it in my store at ScrapMatters!


Also the November Daily Download at ScrapMatters begins today! Me and some of the other Designers at ScrapMatters have teamed up and created a FABULOUS new kit!! And were giving away bits and pieces of it each day!!

Click here to go to the Daily Download at ScrapMatters.

Ok....now here's what you've been waiting for...THE BLACK FRIDAY BLOG TRAIN has pulled into the station!!! I'm stop number 13 and you've just arrived in the Midwest!! But before you collect your gift...let me share with you a little bit about my family and my all time FAVORITE Christmas tradition...

For those of you who don't know...I am the youngest of seven children. (Yeah...that's right 7!) My parents adopted six children...myself included...and I feel so blessed to be part of such a huge family. My favorite Christmas Family Tradition that we would celebrate every year when we were living at home was called "The Seven Days of Christmas." At least that's what my mom called it...why seven???....for her seven children. It worked like this...starting on December 18th of every year just before we would go to bed we would all assemble around our huge family table. Usually my mom would have these two big Christmas tree candles lit to make it kinda of special. My parents would start off by reading a few verses out of the Bible and after that they would remind us about the true meaning of Christmas. After that we would go around the table usually from oldest to youngest and say what we were thankful for. Then my mom would pull out seven small presents and hand them out to each of us. Of course as a child this was my favorite part...the presents weren't anything real big...it was usually something like a candybar, or Christmas Pez, coloring books...things like that. So we would do this every night through Christmas Eve. Then on Christmas morning we would wake up....ummm....correction....I would wake everybody up!!....and we would line up on the stairs usually from youngest to oldest... sometimes we would alternate each year and do it from oldest to youngest. But if I put on my spoiled brat face then I would get my way and most of the time we would line up from youngest to oldest which meant that I was the first one in line!! Yippie!! As we would stand in line on the stairs we could hear my parents shuffling presents around and they would always put on Christmas music. Then we would hear them yell, "Ok....come on down...it's Christmas!" Now I'm not sure why I even bothered to beg to be in the front each year because whenever my parents gave the "OK" to come downstairs all I could hear behind me was feet moving at a fast pace and I could feel the stairs shake!! It was like a stampede or something! I'd start out in the front of the line and before I knew it I'd get pushed down (on accident of course...yeah right) trampeled on (usually my older brother would help me up) and then next thing I know I go from being the first person in line to the last one! Yep...I always end up being the last one down the stairs and into the family room to open our presents!!

Whenever my family all gets together...which is very rare because we are spread out all over the country...we always have such great laughs about this family tradition!! I miss those days! I don't really celebrate the "Seven Days of Christmas" like my parents did (mostly because I don't have seven children...LOL!) But we do something similar...on Christmas Eve we sit down...me, my husband, step-son (if he's in town) and my son and we discuss the true meaning of Christmas and why we celebrate it. It's important to me that my children know that it's not about Santa and presents but about the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. On Christmas morning...yep...I'm still the one that wakes everybody up...some things never change!! I make them wait in line just the two of them...while I light up the Christmas tree...shuffle the presents around and turn on some Christmas music...and then I yell, "Ok....come on down...it's Christmas!"

Thank you for listening to my favorite family tradition...I hope you enjoyed it! You definately deserve something for listening to my long story so here it is....

It's a Photo Tumbler Insert made with the ScrapMatters Design Team Collab kit "Comfort & Joy" that you get free with a $10.00 purchase at ScrapMatters! I made it for my tumbler that I got at Starbucks and I'm sharing it with you!! All you have to do is pop in your photo, print and cut then insert into your tumbler. Simple and Quick!! I hope you like!!

Download Here

All right this train is about to leave...time to hop on board...CHOO CHOO! The next stop on the Black Friday Blog Train is Kari at stop number 15. And just in case you need to back track stop number 13 was Bree.

Have a GREAT Black Friday everyone!!