Christmas Place Mats from Joce

I can't remember a Christmas from my childhood without the homemade placemats that my mom made from saved Christmas cards.  Wow, I loved them.  And I spent a lot of time looking at every single card and the composition and theme on each mat.  

Apparently she threw them away last year as laminated cardstock and construction paper just don't last forever.  But a little piece of my overly nostalgic self still grieved to  hear it.

Nonetheless, I had been saving my own Christmas cards for years, partly because I am overly nostalgic and partly because I thought that I just might make my own placemats someday.  Seriously, though, I just don't do crafts....ever.  It's just not in me.   So last year I donated all of my cards to my sister Joce who said that she was saving hers to do a placemat project too, and then forgot all about them.  

But that Joce, even if she doesn't get into much of the crafty-crafts herself, she is if anything a very thorough person.  And this year a package arrived in the mail to me, from her.  Voila: placemats!  And....... from my cards, no less.  And........ I think that she hasn't even done her own yet but did mine instead!  And....because she saved that piece of our childhood from complete annhilation.  And.......because I can remember so many of these cards and who they came from over the last few years.  *(Talk about killing two of those nostalgic birds with just one stone.)

And....because she just did a really fabulous job putting the whole thing together.  

I love them.  

Thank you, Joce.