Sunday, January 10, 2010

The last couple of years, we have tried to give a lot of home-made gifts to help keep from blowing an even bigger hole in our pockets than we already do. (I cringe writing the last part of that sentence, knowing that my mother and father, and possibly a few others, will cluck their tongues after reading it.)

Anyway, this year we decided to do a family CD together as our Christmas present to everyone in our church, our family, and a few friends. It was a lot of work but also a lot of fun. Poor Vanny-poo got the brunt of the hard work. He had to play the piano for all the songs. The month of November was full of late nights where I would lay (lie?) in bed, listening to the clicking of the piano keys as he practiced his music with the earphones on. Bless his big, happy heart.

My job was to play the flute for one song and narrate for another. Allika got to sing "Away in a Manger" as a solo.

Oh! I guess I also had the hard job of folding card-stock into CD cases. I found the tutorial here.

We had gotten a free photo taken of our family at the Christian Community Fair, so that came in handy for the cover of the "album." It wasn't the most professional looking picture since we weren't expecting to have it taken, but it is a good representation of the essence of our family...pretty booger-head and down-to-earth.

And here is a sample of a couple songs. (Forgive me for making you have to endure more Christmas music after Christmas.)
Silent Night
Away In A Manger

The one difficult part of using this as our Christmas gift/card/photo, was that we had to severely limit to whom we could send it. It was very difficult to not be able to send it to everyone we wanted to.

Overall, though, we were very pleased with our home-made Christmas present this year.

5 comments:

  1. Dear Tanny;

    Quit apologizing for everything. We enjoyed the CD very much. We probably would not have accepted anything of greater value or (worst of all) STORE BOUGHT! ! !

    Just because we don't share the same
    convictions on everything doesn't mean that we condemn you guys for what you believe.

    Love
    Dad (and might I say) & Mom

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  2. It is a great gift. Morgan actually sat almost all of the way through it in a chair while I was doing dishes or laundry or something. Morgan doesn't sit for that long for just anything.

    Joshua

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  3. Wow. That's neat that Morgan liked it so much. I'm glad you guys enjoyed it.

    I always appreciate your comments, Dad. You're so cute. Love you (and might I say) and Mom. =)

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  4. We LOVED this gift! We showed all our friends who came over around that time (and that's not a small amount of people!) and Tati and Benny were singing along with Allika. We thought it was an amazing gift, and really love it, and you guys! Thank you SO much for including us! :)

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  5. How sweet! I'm glad you guys liked it so much. We love you guys!

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