Pretty packages

My boss snuck this beautiful box and a Starbucks gift card onto my desk before the holidays. As it turns out, he gave a gift to all of his leads. It was the first time he'd done that and we were all pleasantly surprised. If you know me, you know that I was quite taken with the beautiful box and ribbon. As it turned out, the box contained some of my favorite kind of cookies: shortbread, with the added bonus of them containing macadamia nuts (another favorite) and dipped in chocolate (yet another favorite). Of course, I'm going to save the box when the cookies are all gone.

I received another surprise, this time from a scrapbook buddy. She sent me this beautiful Japanese box, just because. Another unexpected gift that touched me.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

My little owl friend found a home among all my Christmas decorations at work.

And the secret Santas at work used his mailbox as a delivery system so he got lots of visitors, tee hee!

It's still Christmas

At least it is until all of the Christmas stuff is clearanced out at the stores. I couldn't help adding to my stash at 70% and 80% off. The veneers, buttons, washi tape, and journaling cards are going in my scrapbook stash. The ribbon is going in the gift wrap ribbon box (not the scrapbook ribbon boxes). The gift boxes and stickers are the only things being packed away with the Christmas stuff.

Oh Christmas Trees

We made a couple of Christmas trees to contribute to Christmas eve and Christmas day dinners. Of course, these were inspired by Pinterest. The trees are an easy way to present a small appetizer. My platter is around 10x12 inches. I used about 4 oz of pepper jack cheese, 6 oz of sharp cheddar, and less than a pint of tomatoes for each tree.

The trees I saw used grapes, but I liked the idea of a more traditional red and used cherry tomatoes instead. The tree trunk and fronds were leftover from a fennel dish we made for Christmas eve. Dill or another herb would also be a nice touch, or leave off the fronds all together. The stars were cut from lemons.

I'm dreaming of a blue Christmas

Here's the second decoration I made for my office. It is made from a old projector manual. A few years ago, our admin was determined to clear out the filing cabinets. It pained me to see all that hard work (and paper) being tossed so I "saved" as much as I could. The tree turned out to be so popular, I gave a "lunch and learn" last week and also, I gave away the tree to a lucky winner. After all, I can make another one next year.

My holiday attire

Merry Christmas!

I bought this hat at a discount store a few years ago and get compliments on it every year. Best 99 cents I ever spent!

The best Christmas present

(Sorry, I don't have a picture, but maybe I'll get one later. Besides, a photo will spoil the surprise.)

We spent Christmas eve at BIL's and had a delicious dinner (I need to get the soup recipe from my SIL). Afterward, we opened presents or rather, we tried to hold back the kids from opening presents until everyone got in the room. Little G got awesome presents from Nana and Papa. A little birdie must have told them about his love of Star Wars Legos since he received both the Wii game and pajamas. After that, he was glued to the Wii for the rest of the night. As for the girls, Nana and Papa gave them strollers for their Bitty Babies and matching PJs. The girls were so cute with their matching jammies and matching Bitty Babies.

But the best present? The one that actually made the girls gasp? I'll take credit for that gift thankyouverymuch! We gave them Hello Kitty and Ni Hao Kai Lan band aids. Yes, band aids. And even funnier was at dinner, Miss C was complaining about an owie and SIL said they were out of band aids. So after opening her present, Miss C had Nana help her put a band aid on the bruise her leg. Later, Miss E bumped her head, but managed to put a band aid on her forehead all by herself, which made it all better. They both proudly showed off their owies the rest of the night.

Photo 127/365 Christmas eve

Grandpa and Miss C on Christmas eve. C made matching jammies for the kids. So cute!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Not really, but at least I'm not feeling as bah humbug as I was yesterday. I've got a plan to print out our Christmas cards, I've addressed most of the envelopes, I wrapped one of the few Christmas presents we're buying this year, and we're starting our Christmas movie marathon. It isn't really a marathon, but we do have our favorites that we watch every year.

Yet another sign that I'm a packrat

I finally decided to work on Christmas cards today and had delusions of grandeur or at least of making my own photo greeting cards this year. I finally found the photo I wanted to use and a template (you didn't think I was actually going to design it myself, did you?) and then ran into some hardware problems (that's for another post).

So I thought I'd be efficient and at least address the envelopes so we went to Staples to see what they had. You know me...I couldn't find anything I liked in the price range I wanted. Then we stopped at a post office on the way home to buy stamps, but can you believe it, no stamp machine! Sooo, tomorrow we'll be out running more errands. So much for being efficient.

Ahhh, but all was not lost. After we came home, I remembered that I may have had some Christmas envelopes tucked away somewhere. You know, in that huge Christmas stash I have (not an exaggeration: two shelves in the hall closet, one underbed storage box, two gift wrap containers, and several boxes of ribbon). Luckily, I found the envelopes right away and they even sort of match the cards. Close enough and I didn't have to buy more envelopes. Now if I could only find my Christmas stationery so I could write my Christmas letter.

It is July, isn't it?

Because I'm a little confused. I'm seeing brightly colored household items. For picnics? For parties? No! They're back to school supplies and everything you could need for outfitting dorm rooms and first apartments. Better buy your crayons and binders and organizers now because you won't be able to find them come August or September (or if you do, the selection will be smaller and prices will be higher).

We're also celebrating Christmas in July. Hallmark unveiled their ornaments, just as they do every July. And Mr. Fix-it was once again confused as to why we were buying Christmas ornaments in July (because I get more points and that translates into coupons honey, and you know I'm all about the savings). I find it so ironic that I'm the who started his interest in the ornaments and now I collect one series and Mr. Fix-it collects two. But his collection always has add-ons that aren't part of the official series and of course, he has to get them. So he buys about four or five times as many as I do. Still, they are relatively cheap "collectibles."

Christmas presents

This is how a certain family member wraps Christmas. Mom (she didn't wrap these, she's much neater than this) has saved every ribbon, every piece of tissue paper, and every bit of wrapping paper that has ever come into the house. So every year, this person uses Mom's stash and "wraps" our presents. And after we've unwrapped our gifts, all the wrappings go back into the stash for future use. I'm not sure what else to say about this, other than my family is weird (and frugal!), but we all get a kick out it.

Busy, busy, busy

We've been so busy these past few weeks, we've hardly had time to catch our breaths (except for the past few days, more on that later). Work was crazy for both of us trying to get everything done before leaving for the Christmas break. I never got all my Christmas cards out so if you didn't get one, please don't feel slighted. I was happy I was able to get them out to most of the relatives on time. I was hoping Mr. Fix-it would get home early on the 23rd since we were traveling for Christmas, but alas, he came home later than usual.

Here's how our Christmas and the past week went:
Dec. 24, drive across the state, check into hotel, pick up mom, drive to airport and pick up J and B, go out to dinner (Chinese food).

Dec. 25, drive to Uncle B's (a little over an hour), then to the cemetery to visit Auntie M. Have lunch (Asian buffet) with Uncle B, Uncle J, and Cousin E. Visit for a while, then drive back (two hours-traffic sucked). On the way back, stop by Cousin D's. Her whole family was there, along with all our cousins and her parents. Visit for a while then head home. No dinner since we're still full from lunch (although they were having prime rib, one of my favorites and it was hard to pass that up).

Dec. 26th, have lunch and dinner with Dad (Chinese food, of course), visit a little with the rest of the family.

Dec. 27th, have lunch with Dad (dim sum, at least it was a different kind of Chinese food, lol), visit with family, have a traditional Christmas dinner with S and family. It was delicious and when I get a chance, I need to get some recipes from her.

An aside, lest my family is in a rut, we like and some of us crave the style of food we get when we go home for a visit. We ate a different restaurant each time and there were enough leftovers for a couple more meals.

Dec. 28th, head home feeling like there was too much visiting with some people and not enough visiting with others. I thought that Christmas would be less running around since Uncle T is gone, but it seems that whenever time was opened by his absence was filled by something new.

Dec. 29th, catch up on laundry, check in with a few relatives.

Dec. 30 to January 2, vacation! A real vacation!!! We decided to splurge (well, it was a splurge for us) and booked this last week. Nothing like waiting until the last minute. Of course, it took us (well, really, me) two days to even begin to relax. The massage helped, lol. Then it was time to head back home.

We didn't have any mini 2009 calendars (we usually keep one next to the computer) so I decided to make a little calendar to remind us of the fun time we had. I guess you could count it as my foray into digital scrapping. :)

I'm not looking forward to going back to work next week. Sigh. Reality, it sucks.

Just a few gifts

I finally got all the shopping and gift wrapping done. Seems like an awful lot considering we're not exchanging gifts with one side of the family and it is just "token" gifts for the other side. Add in a few other relatives and friends and there you have it. BTW, the bags are color coded, but I will also be adding labels to make sure Mr. Fix-it grabs the right bag for the right people.

Almost ready for Christmas

Just a few more cards to go. Should I brave the bad weather and take these to the post office myself?

Found some gifts in my gift closet so now I only have one more gift to buy, which I may forego since none of the stores half dozen stores I went to have what I want (yeah Dad, like I'm going to be able to find you another shirt like I bought you eight years ago...sorry, you didn't really think I got finally found the Christmas spirit, did you?). Still gotta wrap, still gotta clean house, still wanna take advantage of the sales for ME (again, no Christmas spirit)! Ack, I really do dislike the holidays.

More on Christmas

Recognize these boxes? They are leftover Harry and David gift boxes. We received a couple of gifts from vendors (though nothing as huge as we used to receive) and I just couldn't let the boxes go to waste (though the contents went to various waists, lol). Yeah, "packrat al" strikes again. Fortunately, all the boxes stack inside each other so they won't take up much room.

We spent Christmas with A's family and his brother's in-laws. For the past few years, we've spent it with my side, so this was a bit different. Traditions in his family are now non-existent since his mom passed away. (Or maybe we haven't had enough time to establish new ones?) And in my family, they've evolved or devolved, depending on how you look at it. Since Uncle T passed away, I just couldn't bear to spend it with my family and not have him there so I decided it would be better to spend it down here. As it turns out, my family was in several places due to Auntie M's passing so it was just as well I stayed down here.

We brought over cholesterol specials from thepioneerwomancooks.com. The olive bread was a bit too salty and I think we chopped the olives up a bit too fine since we used a food processor instead of hand chopping. But still, it was tasty. As were the bacon appetizers. Now you know we had to go out and buy all the ingredients for that, lol. They were surprisingly tasty. You can see them here in all their fatty goodness.

It was fun to see little G tear open his and everyone else's presents. He didn't quite get that they weren't all for him, especially since he was allowed to open his sisters' presents also. He's definitely got the oohing and ahhing part down. As soon as he tore into a gift, but before it was even recognizable, he'd cry out, Look at that, Wow!!! And before anyone had a chance to admire the gift, he'd be off to open the next one, lol. Next year should be even more interesting since the twins will be almost two, still a little young to understand what's going on, but old enough to get into everything.

In the past, we had gotten gifts for the in-laws' in-laws (got that?) since we were all opening gifts together. But this year, we thought they were opening gifts at someone else's house, plus there was the rumor that they weren't exchanging gifts. Well, we were surprised that everyone was opening gifts and that there were extra gifts for us. Opps!

Plus, we were a little embarrassed by the generosity of everyone. Not that we cheaped out, but we were more conservative than last year. I know Christmas isn't a tit for tat, but still, we were a bit overwhelmed by our gifts. Really, the best gift of all would be having all of A's family together for a holiday. But I don't see that happening any year soon.

We went to Target yesterday to check out the after Christmas clearances. Anything Christmas-themed is now 75% off. There were a few things left that I wanted, like some large gift bags, but I'm waiting until they're 90% off, lol. A says they'll be gone by then, to which I say, no problem, I didn't really need them anyways. I also didn't need the decorated As that I bought, but I couldn't resist.

I hope your Christmas was wonderful and full of love and joy! Happy New Year!

A very scrappy Christmas

Santa baby (yep, that's how the tags were signed) brought me lots of scrapping gifts and a tee shirt. Most of these, I knew about since we bought the Cricut (an electronic die cutting machine) together and he showed me the tee shirt in the catalog and I loved the saying. I bought a couple more Cricut cartridges and figured that was it. But the box was awfully heavy and large for the cartridges and tee shirt. It turns out Santa A bought me a cordless Ott light, woo hoo! Perfect for taking to crops. I guess he figured out that I wouldn't buy myself one because I didn't need it. Okay, I know you're thinking I didn't need the Cricut either, but I do have a daylight lamp already, just not cordless. So it was a nice surprise. And I can hardly wait to wear the tee shirt to work.

I think that A was more excited about the calculator I bought him than his big gift (Rosetta Stone Spanish software). Oh well.

On a more discouraging note, I weighed myself this morning and my weight is back up to what it was in September. Could have something to do with me eating nonstop for seven hours yesterday, lol. Plus a huge dinner the night before. Plus all the goodies we had at work for a couple of weeks. A and I both want to lose the extra weight we gained, so hopefully, we can motivate each other.

Christmas cards

Have you finished sending yours out? Or do you not send Christmas cards? This year was a um, semi-half assed effort since I did not write a Christmas letter nor include a photo, although I did write a little something in every card and even a letter in some. I wanted to let some people know about the highs (going to China) and lows (Uncle T's passing) of the year.

Last year, I purchased several boxes of 50%/75%/90% off cards so I don't need to restock after Christmas this year. Though if I do find some I like at 90% off, I'll pick them up. But I need to change my card buying strategy. I really need to pick up two boxes of each style (not always easy to do on clearance) because I like sending everyone the same card. This year, I ran out of cards so I had to open a second box. Now I'll be all confused next year (not really, since I put little notes in the boxes, but you know what I mean). Each year, I select the cards I want to use based on my mood. Some years, I like elegant. This year, I went for humorous.

Then there's the dilemma of who to keep and who to cut. My list is pretty constant, all of A's aunts/uncles, a few on my side, scrapbooking friends, a few childhood friends, a few work friends. I decided to cut one friend off the list since I hadn't received a card in a couple of years, plus she hasn't returned any of my phone calls for a year. Yep, I figured I could take the hint. But low and behold, a card from her this year. Guess she's getting back on the list for another year. We'll re-evaluate if she doesn't call me at all this year. On the other hand, if I keep cutting people off the list, I can stick with the one card box per year strategy, lol.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone!

We've got an appetizer baking in the oven, then we need to pack up the car with gifts and more food for the drive over to M&C's. It will be a small gathering tonight, only our side of the family (which I will enjoy). Tomorrow, there will be twice as many people with C's side there also. Should be interesting with a 3 year old, the twins, and a newborn. I'm looking forward to all the kid time.

Thus far, it has been our easiest Christmas. The timing was right so I wasn't too stressed out for work. We're not going out of town. Shopping was easy. I got almost all my cards out (still looking for a few addresses ).

I'm especially thrilled with the gifts I got for A. His big gift came to the office a couple weeks ago and I bought his little gift on the way home on Friday. He took care of his dad and brothers (without too much prompting) and we even got a couple extra things for people. My side of the family decided to not exchange gifts, which worked out for the best since we were all running around with the funeral plans and such. Shipped gifts would have probably ended up on empty doorsteps which would have been bad.

Well, A's loading up the car and I need to finish getting ready. Merry Christmas and hope Santa's good to you this year!

It's December

Can you believe that it's December already? So what's going on with my roses? I usually trim them back after Christmas. But I'm getting lots of new growth right now. On all of the bushes, front and back yard. Crazy isn't it? Hmmmmm, global warming anyone?

Haven't started Christmas cards. Still need to decide if we'll do photos. I bought Santa hats last year on clearance and A agreed that we could do a photo shoot with them. Now, just to remind him of that.

Still have lots of Christmas shopping to do. Bought A a really great gift (at least I think it is great, lol). Spent a LOT more than I usually do. Good thing we cut back on other people, lol.

Actually, we don't spend that much at Christmas. People talk about spending hundreds of dollars on their kids. On the one hand, I am shocked. If they took that money every year and put it into a 529 account for their kids, think of the gain on the kid's college fund. On the other hand, if you bought them a computer, that's way more than a couple hundred bucks. How much do kids really need anyway? Do they really have to have the latest gaming console, and new clothes from American Eagle, and an iPod, plus stocking stuffers? Yeah, just call me Scrooge.