Granny Pat's Christmas Party

When I last wrote, the girls and I were working on our scrapbook pages to give to family members at our annual Granny Pat’s Christmas Party. We did half the pages this year (usually we do a spread per family), and they were very simple—partly because it was the night before the event when we did them and partly because I only packed a Simply Scrappin’ and a few accessories, but I think they turned out pretty cute. 

 

We enjoyed being together to create them—we even got help from the guys when it came to the journaling, and we all visited and giggled until late, eating homemade cinnamon rolls until we were sick.

The party includes Mom Pat and her husband, Bill, my Grandma Baker, and all of my sisters and brothers and their families. It always occurs the full weekend just before Christmas. The last few years we’ve gathered in Kanab, Utah. Out-of-towners stay in nearby hotels (everything’s nearby in Kanab), and the party is at the Stampin’ Up! manufacturing building.

It’s perfectly suited for our family with a large area for eating, crafting, and games; the training room doubles as an area for the children to run around and be as loud as they wish as well as a movie theatre where we have our Christmas program; the phone booths make perfect spots for the little girls to hide away and play; even the hallways are filled with activity. Basically every accessible nook and cranny is taken.

Of course, the warehouse is off limits, even though the older boys asked if they could have their Nerf gun wars in between the racking—just imagine Nerf bullets in your stamp sets!

Friday evening everyone arrives for a light dinner and visiting, and Saturday is usually spent playing games, with crafting of some kind for the women provided by my mom (and Aunt Leslie brings projects for the younger children). The children and teenagers exchange and open their gifts, and we end with our traditional Christmas program. Of course, the entire day is filled with visiting and lots of food!

This year was unique because we also had a bridal shower on Saturday morning for my niece Cierra. We held the shower in the Stampin’ Up! apartment upstairs while the men watched all the children downstairs. It was a delightful time with family and friends celebrating Cierra!

Our Kanab Celebration

I'm down in Kanab tonight--the first time I've been here in months, and I hate going this long without coming down here. Southern Utah always feels like home, and visiting our Kanab manufacturing facility is like being with family--it's warm, cozy, friendly, and comfortable. I love it down here!

We enjoyed our traditional holiday potluck today. Everyone brings something for lunch, and we all dig in. We added our simple little cheeseball  and ate all the nummies everyone brought.

It made me remember when the whole company was this small (we have less than 100 employees in Kanab), and we used to have potlucks on a regular basis. I wish we could do it in Riverton, but we're just too big--it would be a fiasco! I've accepted that and I'm grateful for our growth, but I do love to come back!

Just before lunch we gave out our service awards.

There were 10 five-year awards, four 10-year awards, and our first 15-year award! Linda Kloepfer has been at Stampin' Up! longer than anyone but me, and she got a standing ovation today when she received her $1,500 check. I told her that I was planning on giving her a $2,000 check on her 20-year anniversary!

Tonight, the girls and I have been busy working on our scrapbook pages for our family party that begins tomorrow night. It's pretty much a weekend affair, with family arriving tomorrow and a light dinner. Saturday is full of fun and food and family, and Sunday morning we go to church, eat leftovers for breakfast, and head home.

I'll write more about the pages and the party later. I've got to get back to scrapbooking now, or these pages won't get done!

Celebrating Mom Heather

Tuesdays are typically one of my busiest days of the week, and today is no exception. I’ve got our weekly all-morning Corporate Team meeting that goes until noon, then five more meetings this afternoon, and an appointment tonight—this is a busy time of year for all of us!

However, I scheduled one all-day “appointment” a couple of weeks ago that is more important than anything else I have scheduled today—an all-day “celebration of Mom Heather.”

Mom Heather passed away one year ago today, and I’m going to do everything I can today to celebrate her life. While I’m sure tears will be shed (I expect many tears!), I hope most of them will be tears of joy and gratitude for having her in my life. I’m going to wear one of the many pins she gave me, enjoy eating more than usual (Mom Heather LOVED food, and she passed that love on to me), talk about her with Sterling and our girls (and anyone else who will listen), and call her husband, Paul.

I’m also going to take a few minutes sometime today to walk down to our lobby here at Riverton and look at the Christmas tree there.

Mom Heather made every handstamped ornament on it for our first Christmas here in our own facility.

The ornaments are gorgeous and are so much like everything she did—creative, beautiful, detailed. I’ll spend a few minutes in my stamp studio too, where I have a few projects she made displayed so I can always be inspired by her work.

While I’m in my studio, I’ll take a few minutes to write down some special memories I have of Mom Heather. And at some point in the day, I will definitely watch the DVD we put together for her services—it has tons of great pictures that make me smile and cry, all set to her three favorite songs.

Today will be a celebration of Heather Harrison, and I am so thankful for the things I inherited from her, the things she taught me, and the huge impact she’s had on my life!

Holiday Celebration in Riverton

In a teleconference call with Stampin’ Up! demonstrators on Wednesday, we talked about traditions, and one tradition that I mentioned is the Christmas celebrations we have at Stampin’ Up!—both at our home office in Riverton and our manufacturing facility in Kanab. We had our Riverton party yesterday, and I wanted to share a lot of photos with you and a few thoughts about these wonderful moments I get to spend with Stampin’ Up! family members.

The Riverton celebration begins with our own Stampin’ Up! choir sharing its talents with us (and they have a lot of talent to share!). They walk around the building before the official festivities begin, singing and getting people in the holiday mood. Then we all gather in the atrium for cookies and hot chocolate, while the choir sings several more songs. I love listening to our choir, and can’t imagine the holidays without them.

Then I get to share a few thoughts. This year I talked about Mom Heather, who died one year ago next week. I mentioned how strongly I feel about spending time with those you love all year long, but especially during the holidays, and how important it is that we enjoy this time of year, even if it means we have to take a project or two off our plates. And of course, I thanked everyone for everything they do to make Stampin’ Up! successful!

We also recognized Stampin’ Up! staff members who have been with us five and ten years. (We also recognize fifteen years, but this year there weren’t any in Riverton; we don’t have very man of those—yet!). We give out service awards ($500 for five-year employees and $1,000 for ten-year employees), and this year we had 64 fabulous people who have been with us this long.

One of the employees said it best when she looked around the packed atrium and said, “This is one of my favorite things we do. There’s such a great feeling of camaraderie here. For those of us who have worked at other jobs, we know how special this is, and for those whose first job is here—well, they just don’t know how lucky they are!”

I absolutely agree! I can’t express in words the love and gratitude I feel for the dedicated, gracious, and kind people we have working at both places, and to see so many of them gathered together is always overwhelming. I teared up more than once today! I’m already looking forward to next week, when we’ll enjoy a similar celebration in Kanab.

A Surprise from the Land Down Under

I had a delightful experience today. I walked out of a meeting today and was greeted by a bright, smiling face—Felicity Gray, one of our demonstrators from Australia. Meeting her was a pleasure; I always enjoy it when demonstrators come visit us in the home office.    

 

 However, as I chatted with Felicity, I was particularly touched as I discovered that she and her mother had flown to Arizona last Friday to visit her brother and sister-in-law, who recently had a baby. Felicity got up this morning, caught a flight to Salt Lake City, took a cab out to our home office for a two-hour visit, and then took a cab back to the airport to catch a flight back to Arizona. She and her

mother are returning to Australia next Monday.

When I expressed how amazed I was that she would spend an entire day of her short time with her family here to visit Stampin’ Up!, she replied, “I was so close! There was no way I couldn’t come!” I don’t know that a trip from Arizona to Utah is “close,” but I guess it’s all relative. And meeting Felicity made my day!

Felicity topped off her wonderful visit with a handmade gift.

When she pulled it out of her bag, I thought it was a cute little tag, and then she wowed me as she began to unfold it into a darling ornament. (She calls it a star card.) Felicity said she got the pattern and idea from a friend, and she said I could share it with you. I thought you’d find it as amazing as I did!

You can see it’s quite simple—five square pieces of coordinating Designer Series paper (4”x 4”), each piece scored into quarters, laid out diagonally, and then adhered at the two side corners, and folded into an accordion-type ornament.

It was finished with a front and back tag, and a ribbon. And notice that the button is more than just a cute add-on—it’s quite functional; it keeps the star card closed into the “tag” or open into the “ornament.”

 

I love this gift from my new friend from the Land Down Under!