the goose is getting fat.....

Today I am one step closer to being ready for the holidays......




THE TREE IS DONE!!

Now to do the rest.....

Baking cookies, checking the naughty list (I just know I made it on there this year...WOOT!), shopping, cleaning, more baking, a little more decorating....

I'm already too tired for all this....

Perhaps an Irish coffee and a warm fire is more my speed....

I'll just tell the kids that they were so naughty Santa won't even be stopping to give them coal....

Is it possible to find convincing coal nowadays? I mean if I use a brickette won't they figure that out? I guess they are fairly smart, hell they already know I'm lying about Santa....

So coal is out....

Better go for the 'Martha Stewart' version of Christmas instead....

Could someone get me her number please, I'll pay her in snarky comments and gin...

You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give. ~Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

As some of you may remember last year I wrote about Macy's Believe Campaign, this year they're doing it again.

I am thrilled to tell you that once again Macy's is collecting letters in a special Santa letterbox at all Macy’s stores and for each letter received, Macy’s will donate $1 to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. You can also stop by there and find out how to enter to win a trip to New York to see the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Make-A-Wish is a wonderful foundation that is very near and dear to my heart and I am very happy to be able to do something to support them!! So if you have some time please sit down with someone you love and write a couple of letters to Santa.

Don't forget to follow Macy's on Facebook and Twitter too.

Also, CBS will be premiering a new original animated special called, “Yes, Virginia.” on Friday, December 11, at 8 p.m. ET. which is awesome cause new Christmas specials are always welcome.

And as if that wasn't enough......I'm giving away a Macy's gift card for $25 next week. Watch for your chance to win!

Now run and get those letters written.....

Wordless Wednesday: Family Exchange

I need a tissue, I have daddy issues.....

A letter to my father......

Father,

I'm not really sure how to start this letter. I guess I'll just jump right in. It's been almost 10 years since I last had to write one of these letters and to be honest the fact that I've had to write to you about the same thing more than once is in fact a huge statement in and of itself.

I can not be your daughter anymore. I have no desire to be stepped on by any man in my life let alone my own father. From this point on I would prefer if you stayed out of my life. The flippant way you have of dealing with me and the way you take me for granted are crap and I refuse to be treated this way by you any longer.

You are my father, and I am your ONLY CHILD. I am the mother of your ONLY GRANDCHILDREN. How you could ever go over a month without contacting us is beyond me. I lived an hour and 30 minutes away and you couldn't be bothered to pick up a phone and wish me and the kids a happy Thanksgiving. In the last 4 weeks I have moved and bought a new house and no word from you, no offer to help, no request for a forwarding address.

I asked you if you wanted to participate in a gift for the kids for Christmas, a group gift so that no one set of grands got credit or had to carry the burden. You accepted and when it came time to pay up, you disappeared. I called you and gave you a chance to back out, I asked if you still wanted to be in on it and if not then we could figure something else out, you assured me that you were still in it, that you would get me the money soon. You called me TODAY on Christmas day to tell me that now you can't be in on it.....TODAY.

So here's where I say goodbye.

Don't call me any more. Don't bother my husband or my children. Don't ask your family about me. Leave me alone.

Thank you for your time,
Your Daughter

Do you Believe??

My kids have finally gotten to the age where they know that Santa isn't real.....they still believe in the magic of Christmas they just don't buy the one guy theory.

I LOVE Christmas and all things Christmas so in our house I try to keep the spirit of the season, the "magic", going. We bake cookies and give them to neighbors, we donate money, time and items to various charities.....we do whatever we can to support the season of giving.

And of course we are writing our letters to Santa.....

Imagine how thrilled I was to find out that Macy's is collecting letters in a special Santa letterbox at all Macy’s stores. For each letter received, Macy’s will donate $1 to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. They have a Believe O Meter to measure the amount of letter they receive and special displays in the stores.

Make-A-Wish is a wonderful foundation and I am so happy to be able to do something to support them!! So if you have some time please sit down with someone you love and write a couple of letters to Santa, and be sure to check out the banner I'm putting in the side bar through Christmas.....Thanks guys! And Merry Christmas to you all!!

So little time....

Busy busy busy......

For the second weekend in a row I have run around like a chicken with her head cut off!! Such a busy weekend....of course in some ways next weekend will be worse but more on that later.

This time I had a family Christmas party to get ready for and attend. Friday we ran around picking up all our ingredients for the food we were preparing, then came home and did all the prep work that we could a day early....oh and while we were out we all got hair cuts.
The poor woman who cut my sons' hair showed a slight interest in Pokemon and the next thing you know my guys are following her around the salon spewing Pokemon facts, and bless her heart she pretended to care!! (As soon as my cut was done I got them out of there....LOL).

When I got home from my hair cut I had to get on the computer (and phone) so that I could be a guest on my friend Fiesty's online radio show......so much fun!! We talked about all kinds of crazy stuff.... got a few good laughs too...LOL

Yesterday was spent at basketball!! The boys did great but one's team got beat while the other kid's team totally dominated!! Then it was home for showers and then off to Minnesota for family Christmas time!! We finally got home about 2:30 this morning and everyone dropped like flies..lol

Oh did I mention I slipped on some ice at the party and seriously hurt my leg?? Well I did, and today all the other parts of me are hurting and I have a lovely shade of purple developing on my knee, ankle and the top of my foot.....Perfect!!

So that brings me to today....today is laundry (I can hardly contain my excitement) and cleaning day (seriously, I'm so happy I may burst)......I hope it's also "stay in yer jammies" day because I am just too tired to do the other stuff AND get dressed...LOL

One for the Road.....

Though I am sure that there will be more. It seems I have caught yet another "hoopla" type infection (LOL) from my dear friend Judith Shakespeare and since it is Christmas themed I figure I better get it done with a quickness so......

'Da Rules:
1. List 12 random things about yourself that have to do with Christmas
2. Please refer to it as a ‘hoopla’ and not the dreaded ‘m’-word
3. You have to specifically tag people when you’re done. None of this “if you’re reading this, consider yourself tagged” stuff is allowed…then nobody ends up actually doing it. The number of people who you tag is really up to you — but the more, the merrier to get this ‘hoopla’ circulating through the Blog-o-sphere.
4. Please try and do it as quickly as possible. The Christmas season will be over before we know it.

Okay so now......

1. I enjoy a white Christmas. I was born in southern California and lived there for many years, when I was 6 I moved to Lake Tahoe and since then I just doesn't seem like Christmas if there isn't snow on the ground.

2. I hate to cook, but I love to bake.....Christmas is the prime baking season so it's MY time in the kitchen.

3. I only put half my decorations up evey year.

4. When I was a kid it was tradition in our house to dress up and have lots of guests over for Christmas Eve, now I usually just hang out with my small family. I miss the party.

5. I grew up a military brat, my dad would sometimes bring home a kid (airmen) or two who couldn't go home for Christmas. Those were some of the most memorable holidays because it truly put the "spirit of Christmas" into perspective.

6. I hate fruitcake.

7. Last Christmas I got a sewing machine and while I am eager to learn how to use it, I have not used it once yet.

8. This year we never got our outside lights put up.

9. I never put my tree up before the 1st of December and it is almost always down by the 2nd of January.

10. My youngest son has a Nutcracker collection that we display at Christmas.

11. I love the smell of a live tree but because my husband is allergic we have a fake, but I buy a real wreath every year.

12. I HAVE to have Peppermint Mocha flavored coffee for Christmas morning or else it's just not Christmas!!

....okay that's it....now I tag Jeanie, Jewels, and Beth.

And finally.......

I finished it!! I did it!! I got the damn tree up!! Whooooo Hoooooo!

I started the damn thing on Saturday evening....putting the branches on one by one, stringing the lights and tucking just so....

I got half way done and realized that one string of lights was dead and that I needed at least two more strings to get the tree finished so I threw a baby fit (because I was frustrated dammit!!) and grabbed my purse to set off to Wally World.

When I finally returned from my WalMart trip my hubby was crabby, dinner was ready and my tree was still top-less and strewn across my livingroom.....

I finally finished the thing around 1am, cleaned up the mess from the storage bins and headed to bed only to hear from my hubby "What took you so long?"....he's lucky I let him live after that. So here it is in all it's Christmas glory...

If at first you don't succeed.......

Just quit trying......LOL

I'm still feeling the holidays blahs but I'm off to do some retail therapy later today and hopefully that will snap me out of it. Hubby and I also have a date to put the lights up this afternoon so maybe that will do it too, of course the tree still isn't up but hey, It'll happen this weekend....I promise!!

In any event I felt like I needed a laugh so I found a video that made me giggle and thought I'd share with you:



TGIF!! and Happy Holidays!!