Let the Festivities Begin!

I've seen it coming.  Even before I started thinking about colorful leaves and halloween costumes, the first hints of Christmas started to appear.  A handful of holiday decorations in the stores, the big toy dream book in the mail, a commercial here and there hinting at trees and garland.  No matter how much advanced notice I get, Christmas seems to sneak up on me every year.


Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a world class procrastinator.  I like to think that I work better under pressure but I really think that I am just lazy.  I like to joke (ok, it's not really funny) that I like to wait to start my Christmas shopping only after the winter solstice has occurred.  If you subtract Christmas Eve, that leaves me a total 2 or 3 days to get all of my holiday shopping done.


This kind of behavior drives some people crazy - like my MEF who not only has her shopping done already - everything is also wrapped and mostly tagged.  If I had to guess, I bet she already has gifts for 2011 already purchased!  I know that part of my last minute behavior was created years ago.  My employer always handed out Christmas bonuses - in the form of cold, hard cash - several days before Christmas.  At that time, it was a necessity to wait for a cash infusion to get the holidays in gear.  I guess it became such a habit that I never even thought about starting earlier.  


My last minute shopping frenzies have been known to send my credit card company into panic mode thinking someone hijacked my card and went on a hopping spree!  I have never been much of a online or catalog shopper because the last minute shipping charges are killers!  A certain stuffed penguin was a last minute "must have" that ended up costing twice as much due to the guaranteed Christmas Eve shipping charges!


Inspired by other - especially my MEF - I vowed to start shopping early this year.  I actually had at least one gift purchased BEFORE the 4th of July!  Killing time before a recent flight I happened upon a perfect gift for someone special and managed to figure out a way to get it home without crushing it!  Since I feel like I have a head start already, I am going to keep the momentum going.  I vow to keep picking up things here and there.  I could use a boost by winning this gift certificate to keep my inspired to finish early!


See you all at the mall - but not on Black Friday - I'll be the one at home snuggled on the couch in my pj's watching you all on TV!

Halloween is Over....

Can Christmas be far behind?

'Santa' is growing an awesome beard this year!

"Mrs. Claus" might need a shave though!

I never figured that a half-full bag of batting

and a discarded santa hat 

could be so much fun!

You better be good- Santa is watching you!

Ta-Done!

By know you all know me well enough to know that I am the world's biggest procrastinator.  I never start anything until the last minute and I usually finish up exactly when I am supposed to arrive somewhere.  So you will all be extremely surprised to hear this news.....drum roll please.........I am FINISHED with my Christmas shopping.

Yep, you heard me right, Ms. "I still have time" or "I don't start shopping until Winter" is officially finished with her shopping.  Ok, I have 2 small things to buy to fill in some missing pieces, but other than that I am DONE.  I even have the gifts bought for people I know I'm not going to see until after the holidays!  And you know what else, I even have everything wrapped!  I never start wrapping until about 10 pm on Christmas Eve and I end up staying up half of the night trying to finish up.  But this time, I am done.  I even have a "color coded/design system" so I can tell at a glance who the package is for.  Well at least I can tell between the children and the adults!!  Oh, do you want to hear something else disgusting?  I was inspired by a gift tag set I saw at the store last night and decided that I could make my own, so I custom made all of the gift tags (me loves me Cricut!).

Now that you have picked yourselves off the floor, do you want to hear more? Yesterday I decided to hand make by Christmas cards.  You heard me right, on the 19th of December, I decided to tackle a monstrous project with an impending deadline.  I not only hand stamped the design, but also water colored, paper pieced (without the Cricut :-o) and glittered up part of the design.  Sounds simple right?  Yeah, ask my friends and they will let you that this is typical behavior for me!  Considering that I started after 10 am on Saturday and the design requires 10 unique stamps where do you think I am at with this one?  Sounds like a project that I would still be working on by next Christmas, huh?  I am happy to report that I not only finished up the design but they are all signed, addressed, stamped AND mailed!  Even with dinner out and a shopping excursion yesterday afternoon (spent 50 minutes in the store - 5 minutes to get what I wanted and 45 minutes to check out), dinner out last night followed by another shopping excursion and a quick run to the store again today, I still had them finished before dinner.

So for a girl who started thinking about shopping about 96 hours ago, I think I did pretty good to be at this point.  In fact, the guys in my house keep asking me what's wrong because I have everything done and it isn't Christmas Eve yet!  I guess my recent encounters with Santa really put me in the mood.

Of course, the tree is still naked and the dust bunnies are threatening to take over still, but one step at a time!

No Way, No How

MEF Nicole is a trooper.  On 3 hours of sleep, she went out shopping.  On Black Friday.  With the mother.  Did I ever tell you that I think she is insane?  I love her to death, but the girl is crazy!

There is no way I'm going shopping today.  I hate crowds.  I hate rude people.  I have very little patience for the hustle and bustle.  I want to go buy a bed for Coal and I don't want to even bother with the traffic surrounding the local pet store.  I know that some people get a charge out of the hunt, it is the thing that puts them in the mood.  Not me.

I am the ultimate procrastinator.  I wait until the last stinkin' minute to do my shopping.  Generally every year I get a call from my credit card company questioning my rampant purchases one after another.  No scam, no fraud, just the great procrastinator doing her thing.  This is the way that I get in the mood.  I think about it all for awhile, process a plan in my mind, then run out at the last minute and buy it all in a couple of hours.  I guess I work better under pressure.

But this year I am going to try to be better.  I'm not shopping for anything today but I will definitely try to start before Christmas eve!

No Way, Not Yet

I have had some issues getting up this week. Each day got worse and worse.  One day I woke up at 8 am and was walking in my office at 8:45 showered, dressed and stressed out.  The next day, I woke up at 9 am.  And I scheduled a 9 am conference call.  Ooops!

I racked my brain trying to figure out why now.  Was it the stress of the past week? Maybe.  Was it the fact that is is darker in the mornings now?  I don't think so. Going to bed too late?  Always a possibility but I haven't been going to bed much later than usual.  Seasonal allergies? That usually has the opposite effect since breathing is difficult.  

Last night I checked and rechecked the alarm.  It was set for the right day, right time, right time zone.  The volume was set to a sufficiently jarring level.  Sound was coming out.  As a back up, I set my cell phone to an annoying volume and sound.  I was bound and determined not to oversleep this morning.

Fast forward to this morning at exactly 6:47 am.  The alarm goes off as it should. I lay there for half a second thinking that I'm losing my mind.  The lyrics start to sink into my brain...

Christmas, Christmas time is near

Time for toys and time for cheer

We've been good, but we can't last

Hurry Christmas, hurry fast

Want a plane that loops the loop

Me, I want a hula hoop....

You have got to be kidding me!  It must be a joke, they are not really playing Alvin and the Chipmunks.  And it's not really a Christmas song, it's way too early for that. I hit the snooze button and hoped for a return to reality in ten minutes. Much to my utter dismay, they are still playing Christmas music when the alarm goes off again.  Then I hear the new catch phrase "Your Holiday Station".  Are they crazy? It's 80 degrees outside.  My pool is still open.  It still sees a little too early to put out the Halloween decorations.  Why on earth are they playing Christmas music?

The station's website boasts that they play an "upbeat mix" and "42 minutes of uninterrupted music per hour".  Nothing on the station's website offers an explanation or even an inkling that they are playing all Christmas music.  Except the little "Now Playing" blurb at the top of the web page that currently says "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer by John Denver".  Okay, it isn't even good Christmas music.  

I have to admit that I don't listen to this station anywhere or anytime other than on my alarm clock.  We apparently have signal issues in our bedroom and it is one of the few stations that I could actually get in clearly.  My brain apparently was processing the Christmas music earlier in the week and was telling me it wasn't time yet, so I kept hitting the snooze button.  Now I understand why I couldn't get up.  Well, I gotta go now... Johnny Matthis is asking "Do You Hear What I Hear?" and I have to go claw my ears out!