The Rules of Christmas (according to Cathie)

This will be my 52nd Christmas, and therefore I am proclaiming myself qualified to lay down some laws:

1.  Stocking stuffers must be small, and inexpensive.  And by inexpensive, I mean less than $10 optimally.  No fair blowing the whole wad on a stocking stuffer-the "big" stuff goes under the tree.  And by "big" I mean meaningful.  Diamond earrings?  Under the tree.  Cap gun?  In the stocking.

2.  Do NOT, under any circumstance, fill the stocking with groceries.  And by groceries I mean deodorant, toothpaste, toothbrushes, soap, etc.  That is a cop-out.  You may, however, purchase a nicer-than-usual body wash or fancy chapstick.  Along these same lines, no Oreos, but you can do Walker's shortbread.  Unless you are of a class of people that ALWAYS has scottish shortbread laying around, then you're on your own as far as cookies go.

3.  If you have multiple children, the number of presents per child must be the same.  When your children are older, and you buy an ipad for one of them, and 5 presents for the rest of them that add up to the ipad, they MAY let you slide on the number of gifts, but that is doubtful. Save yourself the heartache.

4.  If your kids say they believe in Santa, keep the dream alive by buying and keeping hidden the Santa paper.  If you and Santa wrap your presents in the same paper, you'll have some 'splainin' to do, and it will probably not be the same 'splainin' as their friends' parents.  In this same fashion, alter your handwriting when you sign the Santa tags.  Kids are precocious.

5.  Let the kids decorate the tree.  This was the hardest thing for me, but better to let go of a little perfectionism than to kill my sweet boy's spirit.  And anyway, he did an awesome job!

6.  Don't mortgage the farm to make an impression on Christmas morning.  'Nuff said.

7.  Christmas morning is for opening presents.  Not Christmas eve.  Although to take the edge off, I've been known to get everyone new jammies and let them open that.  It's still fun.  I wouldn't trade anything for the excitement of Christmas morning.

8.  The sad truth is that Santa can't always make it to the poor side of town.  Do whatever you can to help.  You will get the greater gift, and that my friends is the magic of Christmas.

9. Relax. Enjoy.


Here is how I've planned our Christmas:

First, to keep costs down, I keep my eyes open all year long for sales.  Amazon rocks.  I purchased Club Penguin DS pack for a measley $10 about 5 months ago.  I purchased most of my Christmas gifts this way.  After Christmas I will buy wrapping paper, but only if I absolutely LOVE it.  I still have enough paper for another Christmas or two, and it's all what I consider beautiful (and dirt-cheap!)  I will also buy cards for next year. (Nice ones, cheap!)  One of my favorite out-of-season places to shop is Hallmark.  Check out their clearance racks.  I purchased Keepsake ornaments for 75% off this year.

Have a couple of generic gifts ready.  Last year my generic gift was the Cranberry candle from Bath & Body Works, coupled with one of my giant peanut butter cup cookies.  (If anyone reads this and requests the recipe I will happily post it; they are crazy-delicious!)  This way, my den leader assistant felt remembered and appreciated, and I didn't put a lot of time and money into wondering what an ideal gift would be for her (something I'm notoriously obsessive about normally.)  For the widower at church, I packaged a couple of easy yet yummy soup mixes from Harry & David, for the widows those same cranberry candles with a small box of chocolates. 

We will have a family "party" on Christmas Eve.  This has evolved over the years from what was originally just an impromptu light dinner and cookie event into a hors d'oevres, cookie, and punch by candlelight get-together with family and friends.  It's very casual, and the only occasion where my kids insist on punch.  I try to have a balance of healthy finger foods as well as buttery cookies and chocolates.  This is a huge hit, and probably the tradition that my kids will continue with their families.  I have always wanted to have an open house on Christmas Eve, but my house may never be that together.  We will read about Jesus' birth in Luke.  We will pray and thank God for the gift of salvation available through his death.

Then it's early to bed.  (wink wink)  Hopefully at this point the kid(s) are exhausted and sleep soundly, and hopefully it's not a long haul from the stash to the tree.  This year, I took advantage of my son's sleep-over at Grandma's to wrap everything and relocate it from the attic to the back of the deep (under the stairs) coat closet.

Christmas morning, child that I am at heart, I have traditionally been the first one up.  Yeah, even when my kids were young.  Mommy would wake them up at 5 a.m. to tell them that Santa came.  We open presents, everyone is happy (or at least gracious,) and we drink coffee.  I make pancakes, and we have a relaxing day with an easy yet special meal in the middle of it.  This is normally spiral honey ham, macaroni & cheese (home-made) baked beans and Hawaiian rolls.  Sweet potato pie and a cake of some sort for dessert.

That is our Christmas.  Tell me about yours.  Have a merry!

Wow.

Has it really been almost 3 months since I last posted here????  SO MUCH has happened!  I guess soon after that last post, my husband was hired by a national company as a salesman.  He loves it.  Well, he at least likes it a lot. He's great at it, people love him and want to buy from him.  So he got to quit that blasted courier job.  We are still doing a couple of paper routes, but only until the end of the year, and then hopefully we can be a more normal family.
And......we moved!  Into a much nicer home.  It's actually older than the house we moved out of, but has had much more TLC put into it.  Although it's 100 yrs old, we have drywall!  Yay for smooth walls.  There is a sweet little dip in the dining room floor, but other than that and a little uneven-ness above the kitchen cabinets, I absolutely LOVE it.  We are now located on the quaint little main street of our quaint little village.  It's where I've wanted to live for awhile.
All things work together for good........

Nothing to see here, folks

My life at the moment:
Deliver newspapers 5a.m.-7a.m.
Work at day job 8:30-5:30
Home with son from 6 on
Husband @ courier job every evening from 6-1:30 M-F
Husband gets up at 3 a.m to deliver papers to first route, brings me mine
Weekends try to make up for lack of housework during week.
daily loads of laundry and dishes
Run to VA for daughter's baby shower and grandson's birthday
Anticipate run to VA for birth of baby
Shop at lunch hour
Lather Rinse Repeat

charleston style - Its like that - Run DMC

charleston style

Down With The Sickness

I've got some kind of sinus virus.  Went to the doctor today and she ruled out strep (at least with the instant test, I have to call in the morning for the results of the longer test) but my throat is ON FIRE!  Which is making my ears burn, too.  Fun stuff, this.  I've not felt like doing anything much.  Which means that even though I sent my husband to the store for enough onions and garlic to make a pot of beans and black bean burgers, I don't think I'm really going to make them.  Tomorrow is recycling day, so I have to schlep all the recycle-ables to the curb, and frankly, I think that's enough work for me tonight.  Plus, I threatened promised a hair cut to Gabe, so I still have that to look forward to.  No menu plan here, folks.  We had pancakes for dinner.  Who knows what tomorrow will bring.  We have a meeting for Fall Travel Soccer right after I get home from work. Bible class on Wednesday night, School portfolio viewing on Thursday night, and husband and I will probably do his courier route together on Friday night, since that new job has taken the date out of date night.  You wish you were me.

Not A Total Failure.......

Last week's MPM started out wonderfully, with dinner ready when I got home, and us sitting at the table (!) to eat in about 20 minutes.  I have just a few things to work out:

• I love to cook, but my husband doesn't eat a lot of meat, (and I don't eat ANY) so I always have left-over meat.   Our 7 yr. old is a "taster."  There isn't a problem with leftovers, specifically, but I need to be more diligent about using them.  Reincarnating them would be optimal.
• The afore-mentioned husband is starting a new courier job today, which means that he will not be home for dinner.  This leaves me and the kid, aka the vegetarian and the taster.  I don't think I'm creative enough for this particular challenge.  I see a salad, veggie burgers and chicken tenders in our future.  Did I mention that my son is very, very picky? 
• Last week's menu plan got side-tracked on day 4.  I don't remember exactly why, but I couldn't get it back on track.  I think my husband eventually ate the leftover ribs for lunch.  I used the remaining cole slaw mix to make more cole slaw for yesterday's barbecue, so we never did have fried cabbage.  On Saturday I had a migraine and slept most of the afternoon away, and husband went out and purchased a cheese hoagie, which he saved half of for me for when I woke up.  That was about 3:30, so it became too late to eat anything for dinner after that, and my son was at Grandma's, so we basically skipped dinner.  On Sunday, the kid went swimming with a friend after church, so my husband and I went to buy some new sneakers and grabbed a quick bite at Pizza Hut Bistro.

So I'm taking this week off from menu planning, and I'm gonna see how things work out for Gabe and I.  I will try to plan some dinners that might possibly appeal to both of us.  (Cheese quesadillas?, Grilled cheese?  See a pattern?)
In other news, if I can talk the husband into it, we are getting a d-o-g!  I may have to be a very, very, good wife for this one!