New Christmas Tradition

I was always jealous of my friend Sophie's family Christmas tradition. They would draw names and make homemade gifts for each other. I know that doesn't work real well in your average family, but Sophie's family is above average artistically. Everyone has a talent that can lend itself to making a wonderful, unique Christmas present.

Now that I'm married to an artist, however, I have the opportunity to start that family tradition and cultivate creativity and artistic talent in our future children. Murray and I started this year by deciding that our main gifts to each other would be handmade. Then we'd fill each other's stockings (and for those who love materialism out there, let me just be clear about the stockings: we went all out and even though the stockings were enormous, some of our "stocking stuffers" still didn't fit).

I took pictures of our homemade gifts for you to enjoy. (And I took pictures where you can actually see the size of the stockings.)

{A calendar I made of Murray's heroes... and yes, that's a picture of him. I think he should be his own hero. After all, he's mine!}

{A scherenschnitte of Murray's family crest. Yes, now you know our last name...}

{My portrait, done by Murray. Isn't he awesome? The work represents two things I love: 1) Murray's original artwork, and 2) me.}