Holiday Freebie Festival, Day 26! {FREEBIES}

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and Santa brought you everything on your list!  The gifts keep on coming here on AFOMFT thanks to our HOLIDAY FREEBIE FESTIVAL with great new free printables you can use to celebrate the coming new year.  Today's pick comes from the always fabulous Martha Stewart.

Whether you need to bring a gift to a New Year's party or just want to continue to spread the holiday spirit, these wine labels are just perfect!  Print them out onto sticker paper and attach them to your favorite vino and you're all ready to go.  And shhhhh - it makes re-gifting some of the bottles you got so much easier.

Download the labels here at MarthaStewart.com and if you have a free holiday printable you'd like to share, enter it into the link up below!

*If you are reading this in via our e-mail newsletter or RSS feed, the link up won't show up. You have to visit the post on our website to view it.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from Our Family to Yours!


Card Design: Mink Cards
Photography: Silveira's Touch
Dresses: Faith Works 4 U

Merry Christmas!

Remember: An Original Memoir Poem for Christmas

Last Friday, I posted an original memoir poem titled Christmas Eve, which is about childhood memories I have of spending time with my family on December 24th at the home of my maternal grandparents—Michael and Anna (Chalupka) Kozicki. Michael and Anna were Polish immigrants who came to America in the early part of the 20th century. They met in Boston, got married, and moved to the North Shore of Boston where they settled and raised four children—two girls and two boys.

Following, is the last memoir poem from my collection A Home for the Seasons. This poem also takes place on Christmas Eve—after dinner. The "us" in the poem is my sister, my four cousins, and I.


REMEMBER
By Elaine Magliaro

Dzidzi tells us to put on our coats.
He steps off the front porch
and leads us down the stone walk
into the night.
Standing at the edge of his garden,
He looks up at the winter sky.
“There,” he says pointing to Orion’s belt.
“There are the Three Wise Men.
They followed a bright star to Bethlehem.
They journeyed far from home
just as Babci and I did many years ago
when we left Poland to come to America.”
He turns his eyes toward the house,
red lights glowing in the windows,
then gazes at his snow-covered garden.
“Remember this night,” he tells us.
“Remember this place.
Remember all the happy times we have shared here.
Every Christmas Eve look up at the Three Wise Men
and remember.”


You’ll find two more Christmas Eve memoir poems—Christmas Eve Polka and the Christmas Babka—here.

Note: I’m sorry that I haven’t been posting much lately. I got sick right after Thanksgiving and fell behind with all my Christmas shopping and preparations. I’ve been really busy the past few weeks playing catch-up with all the things that I have to do. Now, I have most of those things crossed off my list. I’m hoping things will settle down after the holidays so I can focus on my writing and blogging once again.

I must get back to work in the kitchen and bake two sour cream chocolate cakes—which I frost with homemade whoopie pie filling and then coat with a bittersweet chocolate glaze. This is one of my family’s favorite desserts.

I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!

The Poetry Friday Roundup is over at A Year of Reading.

Holiday Freebie Festival, Day 23! {FREEBIES}

It's day 23 of HOLIDAY FREEBIE FESTIVAL and today's featured find will be perfect for your Christmas table!  It's a Wishing Tree from My Grafico.

You can download all of the pieces you need to build your very own, along with sentiment circles to add to it.

You can even let your kiddos create their own ornaments to hang on the Wishing Tree!

Download the printables here at My Grafico and if you have a free holiday printable you'd like to share, enter it into the link up below!

*If you are reading this in via our e-mail newsletter or RSS feed, the link up won't show up. You have to visit the post on our website to view it.

Holiday Freebie Festival, Days 19, 20, 21 & 22! {FREEBIES}

Yup, I'm behind again with my picks for the HOLIDAY FREEBIE FESTIVAL but it's because I've been so busy checking my list to make sure I got gifts for everyone.  Lucky for me, I have all of these free printables to help me finish things up.  Here are four easy gifts you can give!

1.  Hot Cocoa Mix
Just fill a baggie with some cocoa mix, wrap it with this free printable from Lolly Chops:

And you're good to go!  You could even give a mug and some marshmallows to go along with it.

2.  Bath Salts
The lovely ladies at Blonde Designs give you the recipe for their favorite DIY bath salts as well as these free downloadable labels.

And those adorable jars are just $2.99 for a set of four at Ikea.  Talk about a cheap, er, I mean inexpensive, gift!

3.  Snowman Candy
Laurie Furnell created these fun snowman printable wrappers that can be sized to fit anything from candy bars to Lifesavers.

Just tie some old fabric around the "neck" as a scarf and stick an old baby sock on the head for a hat and you've got a super cute stocking stuffer. 

4.  Christmas Tees
Kim at  It's a Crafty Life designed this sassy owl graphic that can be printed onto iron on transfer paper so you can make tees and onesies. 

Make a top and pair it with some festive pants and you've got instant holiday PJs!  Love it.

Download the printables via the links above and if you have a free holiday printable you'd like to share, enter it into the link up below!

*If you are reading this in via our e-mail newsletter or RSS feed, the link up won't show up. You have to visit the post on our website to view it.

Holiday Freebie Festival, Day 18! {FREEBIES}

For day 18 of the HOLIDAY FREEBIE FESTIVAL, I'm featuring a printable I've already used.  Twice.  I found it over on Simply Modern Mom and it was designed by one of my favorite bloggers, Ez from Creature Comforts.  It's perfect for anyone who want her gifts to look fabulous but doesn't necessarily have the time - or the skill - to make it happen.

  

Yes, that's a printable bow!  Just print it out and stick it on any old bag or box and presto!  Instant show stopper.

They even double as gift tags.

The bows come in the two colors show above and there's also a color-your-own version that's great for letting your little Picassos add a personal touch to your presents.  Does it get any more fabulous - or simple - that that?

Download the printable bows at here at Simply Modern Mom and if you have a free holiday printable you'd like to share, enter it into the link up below!

*If you are reading this in via our e-mail newsletter or RSS feed, the link up won't show up. You have to visit the post on our website to view it.