You are here: Home / Archives for I love the Holidays

It’s Beginning To Look Like Christmas Here

December 6, 2011 By

We went out this weekend and bought a Christmas tree. We went to Horrock’s as usual. It was cold and windy, but sadly, the snow melted as fast as it came last week.  Chris picked out a seven foot tree and he and the boys tied it to the van’s luggage rack.

I think Kaitlyn has my Christmas spirit, she’s been in an exceptionally good mood lately. Even if she is bouncing around like Tigger half the time.

Nathan asked to buy a hat on our way through Horrock’s to the tree lot, and then while Chris finished up with the tree, he and Ryan had one of their inside-joke conversations. I love how close they are.  I just love them in general :)

Once the tree warmed up and the branches relaxed, we realized it’s a LOT bigger around then we thought, and it has a big gap in the branches near the bottom on one side. That side will just get turned towards the corner, and we’ll do the best we can with our ornaments. I think it’s going to take every ornament we have to fill it!

Having the tree up is what really makes it feel like Christmas. That and the lights Chris put up one evening after dinner while I was out running an errand, he wanted to surprise me.  Kaitlyn asked why we don’t have multicolored lights. I don’t know, I just like the way the white ones look. They make the house look warmer.  I wanted to do colored net lights on the shrubs, but with seven shrubs and lights $9 a box, it just wasn’t in the budget this year.  No big deal.

Have you put up your tree yet? Any interesting tree-related stories you want to share in the comments?

Filed Under: I love the Holidays Tagged With: , , ,

5 Sure Wins for Family Holiday Gifts (Guest Post)

December 2, 2011 By

Last year’s holiday fad of Snuggies and singing Elmos has passed, and it is already time to start prepping for this year’s holiday season. Many of the hot 2010 gifts are still sizzling hot at the end of 2011. There are plenty of As Seen On TV gifts that will leave your family with a lackluster empty feeling. Getting a gift that the whole family loves is tough. Dad isn’t in high school football shape anymore and can’t twist for Twister. Mom is too busy worrying about the in-laws coming over to sit down and play Monopoly. The kids don’t know how to play Gin Rummy or Canasta. Here’s a list of sure-fire gifts that will please at least one member of the family!

Xbox Kinect or Wii: The XBox 360 has always been a hot item since its release in 2005 and the same with the Nintendo Wii, the first motion detecting video game. I have good news about both, the Wii is at an all time low price of $149 and you don’t need to go out and re-buy a brand new XBox, you just to buy the Kinect, which will also set you back $149. The great thing about these motion sensor games is that they are easy to play and you can decide how much effort you want to put into the game. The parental generations don’t need to know how to ‘pwn noobs’ with the traditional XBox controllers since with the Kinect, you use your own hands and feet to kick, punch and throw.

HD Projector: Is it tough to round up all the kids for a movie night out? Then bring the movie theater experience home. Gone are the days that theater style projectors are only for the 1%, these are priced just about as much as an iPad and can hook up to every accessory you have. So stay in the pjs, make some popcorn and fire up that projector and enjoy the movie!

iPad 2: Another rollover hot item from 2010, but this year it is the iPad 2. This is a great family tool because Dad can play Tiger Woods golf, Mom can attack the pigs with Angry Birds and the kids can slice away on Fruit Ninja. On vacation leave the laptop at home and just bring the iPad, filled with Yelp!, Google Maps and hundreds of thousands of apps for whatever need you might have. The 10 hour battery will keep your long road trips powered and you don’t have to worry about plugging it in every night. The iPad is equipped with parental controls, so don’t worry about Jr. exploring any sites he shouldn’t be. Are you looking to save a few bucks? You can still buy the original iPad from Apple for a discounted price.

Sporting Event/ Concert Tickets: We aren’t talking about Disney on Ice or the circus. Take your kids to the local professional football, baseball or whatever sport they will enjoy. Nothing is better than having your kids jacked up on cotton candy and soda, while you enjoy an over priced beer and root on your favorite team. Sports are not your thing? Then check out a classic rock artist on tour and your kids will thank you when they get older. Rock greats like Bruce Springsteen can still put on a heck of a show that your kids will even enjoy.

Keurig Coffee Makers: One sentence can sell this coffee maker. Coffee in less than a minute. What makes this a great family gift is the fact that it doesn’t just brew only coffee. It also makes hot chocolate (a kids’ favorite!), both hot and iced tea and even the seemly unnecessary decaf coffee are all within the capabilities of the Keurig. Every coffee flavor you can imagine from Pumpkin Spice to Peppermint and even the traditional offerings from Starbucks are available in K-Cups that pop right into the Keurig for a fresh cup tailored to each person.

This isn’t the end all of lists, but is a great jumping off point. Maybe you need some gifts for mom? Then check out these beauty gift ideas. Do you have a great family gift that went over well last season? Please share all your ideas below in the comments.

Filed Under: Holiday Gift Ideas, I love the Holidays Tagged With: , ,

Christmas Vacation Update

December 30, 2010 By

Hi! I’m still here! I haven’t posted since before Christmas, which I know sucks, and I really have no good excuse except to say that I’ve been watching the backs of the boys’ heads while they play nonstop video games and letting Kaitlyn play way too much Nintendo DS doing lots of intellectually enriching activities with the kids, and that has kept me pretty busy.

As an overall holiday, Christmas was pretty good this year. We went to my parents’ house for Christmas Eve, which we do most years. My brother, his girlfriend, and her son were there, plus my stepbrother and stepsister, plus Dad and Jean, so it was crowded, but we had a lot of fun. We have a buffet dinner and the kids open presents, and when it gets too crazy we shoo the kids down to the finished basement to watch TV. A neighbor stopped by to drop off a gift and snapped a quick photo of everybody.

Everybody!

Thanks to the PR firm repping Bob Evans, I contributed a “Farmhouse Feast“  to our dinner. I have to give a shout-out to the manager of the Bob Evans restaurant on West Saginaw Highway in Lansing. I had ordered the Farmhouse Feast ahead of time and thought they said pick it up at 4:00, but they had actually said 3:00. When I walked in through the take out order door, the restaurant itself was closed and they had already put all the food away. The manager was so nice, she said if I could wait they would get everything back out and box it up for me. And then she kept apologizing to ME for making me wait, even though it was my fault for being late, and “for my trouble” she added an extra pie to the order. We gave her a $10 tip.

We had been planning to drive to Canton to my Grandma’s house on Christmas Day, but on Christmas Eve day we discovered that one of the already bald tires on the car was wobbling, making the steering wheel vibrate and everything. Yikes.  So the five of us piled into my parents’ Buick Enclave for the drive.  I could not believe that car held seven people totally comfortably.

My Grandma Culver is 84 years old and cooked the entire Christmas dinner herself. And it was so good.  We had ham and green bean casserole and her famous jello/cream cheese/pineapple salad, and because she is Greek (she’s my step-Grandma actually) she made a basic Greek salad that we all loved. Kaitlyn kept picking the tomatoes out of my salad and eating them herself.

As for the Christmas presents this year – well. Guess what I did? Nathan and I went shopping on Black Friday and I bought Ryan Fallout:New Vegas for the Xbox.  And then put it…somewhere. I have searched all of my usual gift hiding places, when it didn’t turn up in any of those, I started looking in non-usual places, like in the cabinet under my bathroom sink and the top shelf of the linen closet.

People, that game is GONE. It has been swallowed up by this house.  I felt so bad I used Amazon gift cards to buy him another copy, which I will put directly into his hands when the package arrives.  When I hide something, I hide it GOOD.

My Stepmom bought me Britney Spears Midnight Fantasy perfume. I’m not sure what Britney Spears’ Midnight Fantasies are exactly, but the perfume smells like fruit. Like…blueberry gum.

She bought Kaitlyn a Fur Real Kitty, have you seen these things? It’s a big stuffed cat with a battery pack, and it not only purrs, it responds to pats on the head by rolling over on it’s back so you can pet it’s tummy. And it lifts a paw and wipes it’s face! We were all taking turns with it on our laps :P

Me and Kaitlyn

The top gift of 2010, the hit toy of the year by far, is the Zoobles that my Stepmom bought Kaitlyn. Zoobles are little plastic creatures that start out rolled up in a ball, and there’s a magnetized spot on the bottom. When you touch the Zooble to it’s “Happitat” (yes, really), it pops up to reveal a bird or fish or cat or, well, some of them it’s hard to tell WHAT they are supposed to be. Kaitlyn took them to Grandma Culver’s to play with before dinner, and everyone started playing with them. My Aunt, my Uncle, the boys, Chris. Zoobles are fun for all ages :P

Zoobles

So yeah, that was Christmas 2010.  More photos are on my Flickr, send me a friend request if you’re on it too and we aren’t already friends there.

Coming up next – I’ll tell you about how I bought a significant piece of my childhood for practically nothing on eBay!

Filed Under: I love the Holidays Tagged With: , , ,
« Older Posts