For the Day 4 Challenge at Oscraps, we were asked to use one word -- HOLIDAY -- somewhere in our layout. (The plural version is also okay.)

I decided to do an irreverent take on the holidays -- because not everyone looks forward to them. They may have lost a loved one, and this is their first or second holiday season without them. Or, the holiday season may have been a difficult time for them growing up, with arguments, poverty, or abuse (or all of the above). Not all families are happy ones. For example, my family liked to play "fake happy family," pretending we all got along and trying to create those photogenic happy family moments that were never going to happen. Fortunately, now, I have cultivated my family of choice and the holiday season is wonderful, relaxing, and restorative!

My intent here is not to offend anyone -- this is just an art journaling-like expression of my former feelings towards the holiday season.

For this layout, I used a Scrooge-like irreverent tag from Crafty Button Design's Sassy Pants Holiday Tags as the main focal image. (The voice of my Christmases past!) Everything else is from Rachel Jefferies' Sweet December Stories Complete Mixed Media Collection. I picked a pretty mixed media polka dot background paper and layered several pocket art cards between the tag and the background. I added a bow to the top of the tag, several stars, a bird house, flowers and leaves, a ribbon, and some stamping. I selected the "happy happy" word strip precisely because it is a contrasting color, it goes with the stars painted on the tag, and because it represents that "fake happy family" feeling for me. The title is a sticker from Sweet December Stories that I added using the multiply mode, to make only the distressed text viewable.