Christmas. Was. Awesome.

We had a really good Christmas. We rented movies and ate bad food and got good gifts.

First of all, I have to start at the logical place--his family is one that has the tradition of new pajamas. And this year, I was in on it. I'm super excited because I've always thought that was a cool tradition and now it's one that I'm part of. So we put on our pajamas and made a bunch of really yummy, really bad for you food (Friday's frozen Jack Daniels chicken bites, crab & cheese rangoons, cheese filled breadsticks and pizza rolls) and opened a bottle of wine. We watched Robert Rodriguez's half of "Grindhouse" ("Planet Terror") and followed it up with "Hot Fuzz" (by the guys who brought us "Shaun of the Dead"). Both were good, but I LOVED "Hot Fuzz". LOVED. IT. Then we went to bed.

On Christmas morning we opened our presents.

From his parents I got (obviously) my pajamas and this awesomely warm, awesomely fuzzy red fleece blanket. Love it.

From my parents I got my pearl jewelry (necklace and ring) and seasons 1 and 3 of House on DVD (I already have season 2).

From Matt, the first thing I opened was my Joy to the World musical thing from Hallmark. I love it. I played with it every day at work. And the second I opened it I was so excited that I pulled it out of the box and found batteries for it so I could play with it before I opened anything else. It's wicked cute. Here's a picture.

If you press the tree it plays "Joy to the World". Each child plays a different instrument. You can play one instrument at a time or any number of them you want. You can turn each kid on and off at will. You can start them all at once (with the tree) or stop them all at once (again, with the tree). It's soooo fun. I love it. I was super surprised.

Next from Matt I got the book "I Like You: Entertaining Under the Influence" by Amy Sedaris, whom I love. "Strangers with Candy" rocked my world. I'm stoked to read this book.

Last, but cerainly not least--Matt got me my iPod (with some help from my girlfriends). He couldn't get me a pink one (the sold out) but he got me a 2nd generation Nano which is what I wanted. (I don't like the new Nanos). He bought me pink skins for it, so I'm ecstatic. I bought myself an armband and today was my first gym workout with it and it was AWESOME!! I love lifting with music.

So I'm a super happy girl. Christmas was great. For the rest of the day we played with our mp3 players (I bought him a Creative Zen Stone) and watched Quentin Tarantino's half of "Grindhouse" ("Death Proof") which was awesome. Then, then we went to see Sweeney Todd. IT. WAS. AWESOME.

I should also mention that it took me about an hour to master the clickwheel on my iPod. Seriously. This ridiculously easy to use piece of electronic love was incredibly difficult for me. So sad. Just had to share that.

I had a super good Christmas and hope you all did too.

Christmas has exploded! I'm not finished decorating, but we got our tree, and that was a HUGE start.

Sweet! I just checked my package tracker for the ornament(s) I ordered and they are at the post office! They must have come after I left (since I've already been there today). I will have to go back after 1:30 (as they close between 12:30 and 1:30 for lunch, and it's almost 12:30 now).

I'm getting shit done though.

1. Go to store: card for Nancy, more ribbon!, more frosting
2. Stop at bank: drop off cards, get $ for Jeffrey's card
3. Return home, quick clean apartment: bedroom, bathroom, great room, kitchen
   
4. Finish decorating cookies
5. Wash cookie plates and tins, package cookies (need to wait for frosting to set)
   
6. Finish wrapping gifts
7. Start Christmas Cards
8. Do Yoga Booty Ballet (if I don't make it to the gym)
   
9. Get myself cleaned up.
10. Go to Post Office to pick up package.

I just had some chicken for lunch. I was hungry, but nothing sounded good. Won't complain about that as I'm drinking about half a days worth of calories in Coffee-Mate lately. Speaking of Coffee-Mate...

Think I'm done for now, Lunch is over. Time to get back to work. More later.

**edit: Okay, now I'm going to the post office to pick up my ornaments (hopefully the slip is in my box!). Then I'll come home and wrap gifts (after calling my sister because I've already forgotten which color is for which niece). Then I'll package my cookies, do some Yoga Booty and take a shower and get cleaned up to go out with boy. I might even see if we can swing having dinner out today. Maybe. I need to balance my checkbook first.

Here's the plan for the day. I should go to the gym first, but once again I'm going to put it off. Especially since I slept an hour later than I planned to.

1. Go to store: card for Nancy, more ribbon!, more frosting
2. Stop at bank: drop off cards, get $ for Jeffrey's card
3. Return home, quick clean apartment: bedroom, bathroom, great room, kitchen
   
4. Finish decorating cookies
5. Wash cookie plates and tins, package cookies
6. Finish wrapping gifts
7. Start Christmas Cards
8. Do Yoga Booty Ballet (if I don't make it to the gym)
   
9. Get myself cleaned up.

My goal is to do all of this before Matt gets home around 5. Then we're going to look for a Christmas tree and start decorating our apartment. Guess I better get moving.

Oh. My. So I'm almost finished with my cookies. I say almost because I need to frost & decorate the rest of the brown sugar cookies--I just couldn't do it tonight. I don't think I have enough frosting and I didn't feel like going to the store for more. Plus, while I enjoy decorating them immensely, I strive to make each one different and I was running out of creative steam. So, since I can finish tomorrow I'm going to. Got most of the dishes done (odds and ends left, mostly from meals not from baking).

Okay, let's recap the day so far:
-talked to mom & sister for almost an hour
-made dough for sweet wafer sandwich cookies (cooling in refrigerator)
-made oatmeal cookies with chocolate covered sunflower seeds
-washed dishes twice
-listened to 3 christmas cds
-made mexican eggs for lunch (mmm...mexican eggs)
-made more coffee (mmm...coffee...)
-emailed my sister the link to my lj
-baked sweet wafers
-baked brown sugar cookies
-went to post office
-making dinner
-talked to mom again
-finish sweet wafers

Still to do:
-decorate brown sugar cookies (started but I need a break!)
-clean up kitchen
-start christmas cards
-clean apartment
-decorate
-workout at gym
-wrap gifts
-burn christmas cds for my sister (importing now)
-email my mom

I'm going to break just a little bit longer (perhaps enjoy some coffee) and then get my butt back to work! Yay cookies!

**Wow...I really thought I'd done more than I have. (Not that I haven't done a lot, because I have). Still much to do. fortunately I've got tomorrow too. :)

• breakfast, blogs, etc.
• straighten bedroom, take butter & eggs from fridge
• gym for good, long, sweaty, hard workout
• shower
• COOKIE BAKING EXTRAVAGANZA!!
• start Christmas cards--watch Lori's movie or Tin Man
• start wrapping gifts

Okay. I think that's about it. I don't want to put too much on my list--I do have Thursday off too.

I'm feeling a bit scattered. I started getting Christmas decorations out today. I bought the ingredients for my Christmas cookies. I started trying to find boxes for gifts. I'm a bit scattered. I need to make my holiday madness game plan because I'm going to work tomorrow, then I'm off until Friday and I want my house to be ready for the holidays come then. I want it to look like Christmas exploded in my house, much the way I feel it has exploded in my head.

So tomorrow I plan to:
-go to work
-go to the gym
-watch B.L.
-tape "Tin Man" part 3
-prep my kitchen for massive cookie baking
-find headset so I can talk to mom & sister while baking
-charge phone
-plan for Wednesday/Thursday

That's my plan and I'm sticking to it. More tomorrow.

...of wearing silly things on my head--a la Bear Hat:


I present to you the Christmas installment--Reindeer Antlers!

Got another 2 presents taken care of today. Hoo ah! That pretty much just leaves Matt and a Yankee Swap gift for the Hallmark party. No sweat. Found an ornament online that one of my Hallmark girls and I have been waiting for (we never recieved it at the store and I'm sick of hoping we do.) She's one in a set, but she's really the only one I wanted. Karen has the rest and needs this one to round out the collection. She's just wicked cute!



Special thanks to HallmarkPlace.com for having this one in stock. Yay!

I still need to make a list of what I need to buy for cookies. I'm dreading the impending snowstorm (which will make the driving and the shopping and the working that much more difficult). Here's the rest of my list for the week:


Yeah. I guess that about does it for now. More soon. :)

One thing that has struck me lately is just how much people complain about Christmas music--it starts so early. Why do we have to listen to nothing but Christmas music fro Thanksgiving on? Ugh. And here is my response: We listen to the same crap music 11 months out of the year, what is so bad about listening to mostly joyful uplifting music for one month? There's nothing bad about Christmas music. Some of it might be sad ('please come home for Christmas because I love you and I miss you') but so are most "love" songs. Most of it is about loving eachother, giving, celebrating. Good stuff. And it's diverse. With exception of rap & hip hop, you can find Christmas music in just about any genre you like (admittedly, I have a tape of Christmas themed rap somewhere, and it is in fact pretty lame, though it does exist). So grinches, quit yer bitchin. It's just music.

[And Matt just reminded me that I've also been pointing out that most of the so-called Christmas music isn't even about Christmas. It's about winter, which lasts a hell of a lot longer than Christmas. But you don't hear those songs anytime but the month of December despite them being topical. Think about it..."Baby It's Cold Outside," "Winter Wonderland," "Let It Snow"--not one of those is about Christmas. They are all about winter, but they are lumped in with Christmas. So people shouldn't really complain about them because clearly, they aren't really listening.]


Our Christmas party for the bank was today and it was awesome! Good food, good booze (what diet?), good company. Our boss held the shindig at her house where we played with her dog, ate lots, drank more, took pictures and opened gifts. Oh, and she hired a limo to bring us to and from her home (about 30-45 minutes from our branch). It was great. :) Now I just need to jot thank yous so I can hang the ornaments and wear the jewelry and light the candles this week. :)


This week Christmas gets into full swing in my household. My cookie baking holiday is Wednesday and I managed to swing an extra day off this week so I have 2 full days to tend to my baking, cards, wrapping, decorating and such. I'm wicked excited. I have 2 (technically 3 as one is new-to-me) new Christmas CDs to break in on Wednesday. And I think I'm going to be Salvation Army bell-ringing one day this week too for the bank. Yay! My mom and sister are also baking cookies on Wednesday and we plan to call eachother while we are baking. And a co-worker at the bank liked my "cookie baking holiday" idea so much that now she's doing it too (though she just requested a day off, she's not actually using a paid holiday/vacation day for it like I am).

Dear Christmas Grinches,

1) You are shopping at a Hallmark store. If you have any experience with Hallmark whatsoever upon which to draw, you know that Christmas starts in July at Hallmark. If you don't like this, you may call 1-800-Hallmark and complain to our corporate headquarters directly. However, for every one disgruntled person who calls there are at least 5 people who love it, so bear that in mind and realize that you are not going to change the system.

2) To those who say "What happened to Thanksgiving?": The answer is "Nothing." It's still going to occur. Next week in fact. Same as always. But bear in mind that, with the exception of grocery stores, Thanksgiving is not a big money-making holiday. The retail world skips from Halloween to Christmas because--duh--that's where the money is. If you don't like this, please feel free to call the corporate headquarters of EVERY SINGLE STORE you've EVER been INTO and tell them you'd like them to hold Christmas until after Thanksgiving. Good luck with that.

3) To the lady who was pissed that we don't have all the individual every day card lines out because the store has been tricked out for Christmas: Please feel free to call our corporate headquarters at 1-800-Hallmark and ask them to give us a bigger store. If we had a bigger store we could put up everything. As it stands, we take our direction from the corporate. We put what they give us where they tell us to, when they tell us to. If you don't like it, tell them because I can't do a goddamn thing about it. I've seen your ugly mug in the store before, so I know you know how Hallmark works--you should've planned ahead and bought your precious blank cards earlier. (And I really did look for them. I don't always, like when I know we're out of something but the customer is insistent that we must have it in the back so I go back and pretend to look even though I know we don't have it so I can come out and say 'nope, sorry'. But today I really did look for those damn blank cards for that bitchy lady. *growls*).

/rant.

When people complain about us not having something they found at another (independent) Hallmark store or about us having Christmas out in July, etc. I usually start explaining the difference between independent and corporate stores (a difference I didn't know about until I started working there). Their eyes usually glaze over. They smile politely and walk away. Because they care as much about that difference as I do about whatever complaint they have. I can't help them. I let them know that and give them the best advice I can.

Then I come home and rant about them in my journal. :)

So some of you will probably hate me, but I'm so excited for Christmas. Already. I love Christmas. I realized that I'm about half done with my gift shopping (I've figured out two more gifts since I posted this afternoon. Now I just need to order things) which leaves me with one person left to shop for and I have some ideas now for him too. :)

I'm a little bummed because I can't go home for Christmas this year and this is the first time I'm spending Christmas away from my family. BUT it is also the first Christmas that Matt and I are actually spending together, which will be nice. I'm looking forward to having our own little Christmas.

I bought my Christmas cards today too. And I bought a new CD for my cookie baking holiday (December 3).

A part of me is just trying to make sure it all gets done early since I have to mail packages home and all that. But I'm also trying to go slow and enjoy it because I love every minute of the season. I love giving gifts, I love wrapping gifts, I love baking cookies and writing cards.

I even bought a naughty or nice button for my station at the bank. You hit it and Santa tells you if you've been good or bad. It's very amusing. I'm trying to hold off on spreading the holiday cheer until after Thanksgiving to avoid pissing off most of the world that doesn't want to think about it yet. But I LOVE Christmas!! :)

k. I'm done now. :)

It is my favorite time of the year. It makes me happy. I love it. I love the jingle bells. I love baking cookies and writing cards. I love decorating. I love my discount at Hallmark.

We bought a tree yesterday. A little 4 ft. fakie. It's cute. We had a Charlie Brown moment when the topper we bought fell off because it's too big for the tree. Must find a new one and fast. Yay. I'm going to go home soon and finish decorating and Christmas carding and all that stuff. Yay. :)

First of all--Sarah, the Christmas CD is AWESOME!!! I love it!!!

Second of all--it's been crazy around here, and I'm still not ready for Christmas.

Third of all--I got my GRE scores back, and I did, in fact, do better than I did the first time around. And considering my first choice school didn't even care if I took the subject test, I know it can't hurt me. :) Yay!

One of my BFFs is coming home today--she lives in Cali with her husband--and she's pregnant! She's due in March, but this is the first time we've gotten to see her so I'm quite excited (even though I'm not a big fan of children, she's one of my BFFs and as long as I'm not the one who's pregnant I can be down with that).

I've been quite productive so far today, let's hope the streak will continue...
Things to do on Thursday:
-clean kitchen
-clean living room
-finish schedule for work
-update LJ
-go to work (schedule & Deb's office)
-laundry
-wrap gifts
-cards for work
-meding
-gift exchange @ 6
-Drea's shower @ 7

more later. :)

Okay, so here's the obligatory list of presents from Christmas:

-a watch
-UNO Attack
-2 sweaters
-a jacket
-2 scarves
-Pleasantville DVD
-A Beautiful Mind DVD
-money
-various gift certificates/cards
-candles from people at work
-a journal
-bath and body works cocoa body scrub and body cream
-a bottle of wine

and Matt and I are exchanging gifts this weekend, so I'll let you know the rest next week.

Yesterday I went shopping and bought myself the following:
-a yoga mat
-a new purse
-a pair of brown heels I've been coveting for months
and from Old Navy...
-the light pink tuxedo shirt I wanted
-3 t-shirts
-2 sweaters
-2 pairs of dress pants
-new jeans
ALL ON SALE!! (I'm so glad I waited because the prices were even better than they were last week!!)

And on that note, kids, I have some stuff to do before I head off to work at 2. More later. Hang tough. :)

I'm finally starting to get into the Christmas spirit. Even though I can't go to the EHS ACapella (sp?) Reunion concert next Sunday (I have to work) and thus I won't get to see a lot of people I want to see, I'm getting into the spirit. Maybe it's because I finally went back to Sunday evening shifts so I got to go to church yesterday, and that made me happy (although the general vibe of my church anymore really makes me miss Sarah Webb and BMC like you wouldn't believe). My Christmas cards are almost all out (still need to call Glenn in Cali and get his addy so I can send his, and the Sears crew is getting cards on Wednesday). I picked a name off the gift tree at church since my girls and I have kinda decided not to buy for eachother, I figure I'll put the money I would've spent on them into a kid who wouldn't have Christmas otherwise. I'm going out to do the rest of my shopping tomorrow. Well, at least most of the rest of it. A certain boyfriend of mine is posing some interesting issues as far as gifts go, but hey, Valentine's day isn't far after Christmas, that will give me an excuse to buy him some other things. So I'm using one of my days off to buy gifts and I'm using the other day off to bake cookies and wrap gifts. And I'm looking forward to it.

I also have a "date" with Kelly tomorrow, and I'm very excited because we haven't hung out in awhile and I have wanted to hang out for awhile. So we're going to hang out. Yay. And I started watching "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" again last night. I love that movie. It's so brilliant.

Okay, that's it. Hang tough, kids...more later...