I'm looking through an old photo album that sits on a bookshelf at my mom's house.

It's one of those old spiral-bound types with the tacky surfaced pages covered in cellophane

film that you peel back to affix a photo.

Anyone who grew up in the 70s and 80s knows what I'm talking about.

And the cover of this particular photo album couldn't look more 1970s if it were wearing a corduroy leisure suit. But I'm more interested in the photos inside.

This is a photo album cataloguing Christmas mornings at our home in Massachusetts when my siblings and I were growing up.

Here's a photo of me excited to open a stretch Armstrong. And here's one of my sister and her Cookie Monster toy piano. There are various electronic games and action figures and play sets,

but that's not what I'm focusing on, at least not this time. I'm looking at some of the things in the background.

There hanging on the mantle, the matching personalized stockings that my mom made out of felt

and fabric glue and the edges sewn together at her convertible craft table with the

hidden sewing machine mounted inside.

Or there on the wall, a plastic bleach bottle cut vertically down the center

and covered in felt and fluff and googly eyes until it became the face of Santa Claus.

There were handmade burlap advent calendars, gingerbread houses, cross-stitch tree ornaments,

homemade pinatas, and on and on. Before there was Pinterest and Instagram and

social media influencers, there were magazines like Family Circle and McCall, physical photo

albums, and people like my mom, who celebrate the season with crafting. Christmas crafting is such a

fun and festive activity that it's practically a

celebration in itself. In fact, it's almost a holiday. Almost. And that's why I'm here today

with this special bonus episode of Christmas past at the end of June. Well, there are some

other reasons too, but I'll get to those a little later. But mainly it's to celebrate

the official halfway point to Christmas and shed some light on that vague and somewhat mysterious

...