The other parts of the Globe today....

Merry Christmas Everyone!

There is nothing that our Kim Holmes loves better than

the Christmas Season up in the Pacific Northwest of the USA!

It is a time for celebrating her family

and all the gifts that she has been blessed with

and she says there is quite a few! The Christmas season

at her house is all about spending time together, relaxing and

enjoying each others company. They spend days baking,

creating and decorating in preparation for Christmas Day.

As you can see we have quite a group of children

and when you add in all the significant others-

the house is really overflowing with laughter and joy!

Our second designer today is our Rita Barakat. She has

been married to her wonderful husband for 19 years and

before she had children she painted life size murals. But now

she is blessed to be a SAHM to five beautiful children ages 18

and down to 5. Her talents are all in the fine arts and she also

directs a youth choir and drama team. And she even sings!

At the Barakat home in Colorado (USA) they celebrate the Holidays

by decorating the house and tree, wrapping presents and all

of them participating in musicals at the church. The whole

family sings and acts! They also love making gingerbread houses

and making cookies! She loves the feeling of Christmas and

says that a little snow doesn't hurt either!

Our next designer is our Jona Saavedra from the Philippines.

She is a working mom to her 5 year old son Zid and married to

a photo enthusiast (Glen) who lovingly supports her addiction

to scrapbooking. She says that scrapbooking is therapy to her

and a great outlet to relieve stress!! It gives her so much joy

when her family and friends appreciate her works of art :)
She also loves to bake, decorate cakes and go diving!

And in the Philippines she celebrates the

Holiday by going out of town somewhere special.

They go to a special Mass the night before

and then a simple dinner afterwards.

On Christmas morning everyone celebrates with the kids

as they open their gifts and then everyone goes

out sightseeing and they take lots of photos!

And now we go down under to Brisbane, Australia where
like the Philippines it is summer for Christmas!
Our Alicia Barry is a teacher when she is not a mom
and wife to her 3 kids and husband. She loves scrapbooking
and loves to create amazing projects out of paper. She loves
photography and likes decorating cakes too!

For their Christmas Holiday they spend lots of time
with family, visits with Santa and a huge BBQ
on Christmas Day eating Shrimp and Chicken.
They have a wonderful meal on Christmas Eve too with
a delicious Aussie traditional sticky date pudding called Pavlova.

and lastly we head all the way up to California (USA)
to see our Julie Walton. She has lived in So. Cal all but
3 years of her life and is mom to 3 grown girls and 3 grandkids,
ages 6,5, and 4 and they are what consume her life for the past 6 years.
She cares for them daily and they are the passion for which her
passion for scrapbooking grew. She loves to take pictures and
scrapbooking seemed the perfect solution. In this world she says that
she loves the fact that she gets to meet so many wonderful people online
that she probably would never have met otherwise and it's even better
when she gets to catch up with them in person. She also loves to
read and take long walks on the beach and collect treasures, rain or shine!

So in California, Julie says that one of her favorite traditions is to go
to her Mom's house and eat the best lasagna ever made by her Dad.
Sadly Julie lost her dad this year because of illness but says
that they will try to keep the tradition going!
Her other favorite tradition is taking photos of her grandkids
in Santa hats. They love posing for the photos!!