Digital Scrapbooks and More Blog

by Denise Bell

Did you know that President Richard Nixon combined two major holidays into one in 1971? I would have been a very young child at the time and did not realize that our country used to celebrate George Washington’s birthday and Abraham Lincolns birthday on two separate days, the 12^th and 22^nd of February.

Now we honor all presidents of our country by celebrating Presidents day on the 3^rd Monday of February each year. This year we celebrate February 16^th.

I hadn’t ever given much thought to Presidents day until recently when my sister asked me if my family had any big plans for this special day. She asked if our family celebrates with any particular traditions. Sort of embarrassed I said no, but it has nagged at me every since then.

I asked my teenaged daughter if they had discussed Presidents Day at school and she said no. This disappointed me. Then I looked around the grade school my younger children attend. There were portraits drawn in life size form of some past presidents on one wall. Other than that, there is nothing at this point to indicate that the children are learning that Presidents day is anything other than a long weekend to look forward to. Hopefully the bare walls are only because the kids have a full week left before the holiday is to be celebrated. I’m sure the walls will soon display some wonderful artwork indicating that the children have been taught that this day is a way to celebrate our past presidents lives and how their actions contributed to establishing our country’s independence and continue to help assure our freedoms to this day.

However, through this process of questioning my children’s history education, I couldn’t help coming up with this question. Shouldn’t I as a mother be teaching my children why we celebrate on this day. Aren’t I ultimately responsible to be teaching them that we as citizens of the United States owe every President of the United States a great deal of gratitude for their sacrifices on our behalf.

So, I began to put a little more thought into how we will spend the upcoming Presidents weekend. I made a list of the things that I want to accomplish that goes something like this:

1. Sit down with the children and discuss why we celebrate Presidents day.

2. Give thanks with them for the blessing of living in a free country.

3. Come up with a list of services that we can do for our community this year.

4. Complete one of these acts of service for our community that will indicate our gratitude.

5. Make a commitment to paying more attention when saying the Pledge of Allegiance or singing the National Anthem. (This is a goal for my family especially when we attend sporting events).

I have come to understand how important it is as I begin new family traditions or as we as a family work toward our dreams and goals that I record what we want to accomplish. I believe that a goal that is not written down is just a wish and so….I have now begun writing them down and I will also write about the results of this weekend.

It will be very rewarding to write down our feelings about the things that we accomplish this weekend. I can do this in my favorite way and that is with digital scrapbooking. I’m sure that as camera crazy as I have become over the past year that I will take some amazing pictures this weekend and then I will have a blast scrapbooking them. For me, the dialog that goes along with the picture is just as important as or even more important than the picture.

Digital Scrapbooks and More has great Digital Scrapbooking Kits that are perfect for scrapbooking President’s Day, Valentine’s Day or other special events and Holidays. It is so easy and so much fun to journal in this way.

I used the the Blue Ice Polka Dot Digital Scrapbooking Kit to make my first President’s Day Scrap page and I will continue to use it after I take more digital pictures this President’s Day. When I am done I will have a whole album of new family traditions.

Though you are probably already doing great acts of service and work to be admired in your lives, I hope that this article might ignite a spark that leads to even more positive actions for those of you that are as grateful as I am to live in this beautiful country. My hope is that you also would have the desire to record for your posterity and the posterity of our country the feelings that you have. We never know when our journals or albums may be the inspiration for one of our countries future leaders!

May your Presidents Day be full of gratitude and inspiration!

Denise

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