Merry Christmas Everyone!

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas!

Photo found here.

Favorite Fun Christmas Songs!

I'm one of those crazy people who loves to listen to all that Christmas music around the holidays.  We have a radio station here in Myrtle Beach that plays nothing but Christmas music starting the day after Thanksgiving and all the way through Christmas Day.  I love it because since they play so much of it, they get to play all kinds of obscure versions you would rarely hear otherwise.  I never hear the Waitresses singing "Christmas Wrapping" on any other radio station!  Or Jimmy Eat World's version of "Last Christmas".  There are some songs that I just have to hear every single year because they make me smile and are just kind of silly or fun and make me feel like a kid again.  Here are a few of my favorites!

Percy the Puny Poinsettia (click the play button at the top right of the screen) 

I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas

Christmas Wrapping

Dominick The Donkey (The Italian Christmas Donkey)

Mele Kalikimaka

And pretty much anything by Bob Rivers, the Weird Al of Christmas music.  I particularly love the "I Am Santa Claus" song that parodies Black Sabbath's "Iron Man".

I Am Santa Claus (LP Version)

The Twelve Pains Of Christmas (LP Version)

Didn't I Get This Last Year (LP Version)

Bells found here.

Christmas at My House

When I was a kid, we always spent the weeks before Christmas hefting presents and shaking them and trying to figure out what was inside.  My parents made it even more of a challenge for us by not putting our names on the packages, so we weren't sure which gifts were for which sibling.  They'd just assign a number to the name tag (1 through 3 since I have two brothers) and only they knew which of us was assigned which number.  And if that wasn't enough, they also "rigged" the packages so we couldn't tell by weight or sound what was in it.  They'd put marbles, pennies, jingle bells, washers and other hardware into the boxes so they'd make a lot of noise and we'd have no idea if it was the actual gift or the little extras making that sound.  And then the odd brick or other heavy object would be placed inside to throw off the weight.  And of course you would never be so silly as to assume the box your gift was wrapped in was the actual box it came in.  So even the shape of the box was no help.  It was infuriating!  And a whole lot of fun.  I love a good mystery, and it was great to try to figure out what was in those packages.  A friend of mine used to always open her packages early and play with the toys.  Then she'd reseal the packages (which were hidden quite poorly in her mother's closet) and by Christmas she'd already be bored with them.  Where's the joy in that?  She'd be left with no surprises, no fun from her gifts, and she'd have to pretend to be surprised when she opened them on Christmas morning.  So sad! The anticipation is half the fun!

I remember the year my older brother bought me a Caboodles case.  I had wanted one so badly!  He rigged the package, but didn't think to tape down the handle.  So every time I shook it, I could hear the very distinctive sound of the handle banging up and down.  But I hate it when people are able to guess their gifts before they open them so I pretended I just couldn't figure out what was in that box.  It always takes all the fun out of giving and trying to surprise someone if they're able to guess what it is before they open it.  :(  So to all of you good guessers out there, pretend you don't know what it is, even if you do!  It will keep the fun going for everyone.  :) 

First photo found here.
Second photo found here.

Christmas Ornaments

I love to make Christmas ornaments!  Actually, most of the time I spend hours and hours looking for new ideas and instructions for making ornaments, and never get around to actually making them.  But I have managed to make a few, and I love them.  Some of my favorites are just super easy polymer clay ornaments made with Sculpey clay and cookie cutters!  You can marble different colors together like the angels in the photo, or you can use acrylic paint to decorate them.  I also like to use Sharpie markers to decorate them too.  The red star ornaments were painted with red acrylic paint and accented with silver Sharpie.  I wrote a lens for Squidoo on how to make them.  You can check it out here.  These are great ornaments for kids to make too since they are so easy.  And of course if you have more time and artistic ability, you can make polymer clay ornaments as fancy as you want! 

My parents still have many of the homemade ornaments my brothers and I made when we were kids. Most of them are made from construction paper, so I'm not sure how well they're holding up.  I'm going to have to get some pictures of those when I go see my parents this week!  Maybe I'll even recreate some of them.  I think that would be fun, and it would be nice to be able to make the memories last just a little bit longer for the ones that are on their last leg. 

Remove Treadmill - Insert Christmas Tree. (Some Assembly Required.)

So I finally got around to getting my Christmas Tree up today.  Wheee!  I'd have had it up earlier this week, but I had to move my treadmill into another room.  Last year DH and I went to Hawaii in December, so we didn't bother to decorate for Christmas, and I didn't need to move the treadmill until this year.  To be honest, I've been meaning to move it for MONTHS now, but I was too lazy.  And of course it was a HUGE ordeal to get it moved.  It's a Sole F80 Treadmill and I love it.  It folds up to save space, and has wheels so you can roll it.  But it weighs a bajillion pounds and only rolls on hard floors - it just sinks into deep carpet and takes too much effort to try to move.  But either way, I wanted to put it in my spare room (office/craft room/storage room/exercise room) and finally had enough incentive to get it moved.  But of course it had to be difficult.  It was too wide to get through the door so we had to take it apart.  Then we realize the deck is still too wide to get through the door without picking it up and turning it on its side.  Have I mentioned that it is quite a heavy machine?  Luckily I know two very strong burly-type people who always seem to get called upon to help people move.  There was no way DH and I were going to be able to move it by ourselves!  So my friend Sam and his nephew Thomas came over to help my DH and between the three of them, they were finally able to wrangle it into the spare room.  It was no help that it was nearly impossible to turn it onto its side without the deck folding up.  Luckily I was able to help by coming up with the idea to use ratchet straps to hold the deck down so it wouldn't keep sliding up.  See, I'm not entirely useless.  :) 
So now I finally have the treadmill in my "exercise" room.  (Maybe I'll actually use it now!)  AND I finally have my Christmas tree up.  It's so pretty!  I love Christmas decorations.  All the pretty, sparkley lights and shiny ornaments...  I'm so glad to finally have them up that I'm not even upset that I have a few big scratches and one gouge in my floors now.  They were covered up fairly well with my trusty Crayola crayons.  If you've ever got scratches in your wood or laminate floors or your wood furniture, don't bother buying those wax pencils to cover the scratches.  Crayola works just as well! 

A Run-In with the Claus

I went for a walk around the neighborhood last night, and Santa was parading through on a fire engine, tossing candy to the kids lined up along the street sides.  I say parading, but this wasn't an actual parade.  It was about 8pm, and it was just a couple fire engines with police car escorts.  I guess they must announce this on the radio and TV and in the newspapers, because these people all were expecting it and were out in force to see Santa.  I was even the recipient of a candy-toss, but whatever it was they tossed to me slipped right through the sewer drain.  They couldn't have done it that smoothly if they'd tried.  Maybe that was Santa's way of telling me to keep my fluffy bum moving and that I don't need any candy.  *sniff*

They do this every year around here, but I can't remember ever seeing this in any other place. Does Santa "come to town" where you live (other than in parades)?


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