The very first Christmas gift I ever received in a gift bag was presented to me by my late sister-in-law, Sheri. She and my brother, Scott, arrived for our family Christmas Eve celebration dressed all festive, arms loaded with fancy bags with tissue paper sticking out the top.
It made the gifts seem so special… I was sure the magical bags were expensive — and, at that time, they were. Now, the bigger ones are $1 and using them for gifts seems like nothing more than a short cut. Oh… and you can use them over and over if you just fold them up and pull off the name tag.
After much criticism from my kid, I’m using real paper to wrap most all my gifts this year. It takes FOREVER!
I looked for a holiday photo of Sheri to share with this post, but didn’t have easy access to one. I did find this jewel…
Great Uncle Ted, Nanny, Benjamin, Phyllis (Great Aunt Kak’s friend), Mom, Sheri, Kak, Scott, ME, and an ex-husband that shall remain nameless.
Out of the ten, four have passed and Kak is 101. This is yet another reason to embrace gift bags! Time is precious.
Weekends are never, EVER long enough. Everyone that works a normal M-F workweek is sure to agree. Around here, Saturday is the day for housework and laundry (and yard work during the summer months) — and Sunday is the day of rest.
Because I’ve not finished (ok, so I’ve barely STARTED) Christmas shopping, we braved the crowds and hit Target on the day reserved for resting — only because none of us were brave enough to hit a mall. $200 later and only one item to wrap (the rest was spent on wrapping paper, bows, dog treats and decorations), I’m still not in much better shape than I was before we left.
We did enjoy the day and ate great food — I just need another Sunday this week.
My trees are up and you can find a few holiday decorations around the house, but I’ve yet to put up lights outside and there’s not one single gift wrapped and under the tree. With Christmas at Ben’s this year, he took Colette’s presents home to put under their tree. I’m pretty sure he did it to drive her crazy for the next 30 days.
It’s probably a good thing because I’m weak. Back in the day, my kid could bat those big brown eyes at me and ask for, “just ONE.” I would always give in — he had it down to a science. Of course, afterward I’d look under the tree and figure he needed more gifts. So then I’d have to find more money to replace what he opened… and so on… and so on… until Christmas Eve.
I seriously still do that. Now I not only have a son with big brown eyes, my granddaughter has them too.
Ben was excited to wrap Colette’s presents — even more so than I’ve seen him when unwrapping his own. Guess that’s the sign of adulthood. That and he hasn’t given me a wish list this year. 🙂
It’s a new year and I’m starting 2018 with an iPhone that is so slooooow, it’s barely usable. You know I LOVE Apple, but this is a joke. I’m evaluating options (especially after reading my brother’s post review about phones), but haven’t made up my mind just yet. It could be my brain is frozen… yes, it’s negative 6 degrees F.
To compound my Apple issues, I’m on a great Mac Pro machine that has very little hard drive space. And, what’s really crazy is upgrading the hard drive is not only expensive ($1500 bucks!), but that’s a joke too because there’s only one bay. So right now, it’s just too difficult to post photos taken with my Canon camera (no room to download from the memory card) — so I can only share crappy photos taken with my crappy phone. ARG!
Ben had Christmas at his house this year and it was awesome! The photo; however, isn’t. Still, I’m sure those pesky non-neighbors will enjoy seeing (the bottom half of) Ben’s tree.
One year when Ben was little, Scott brought in a bubble lawn mower — one that makes a ton of noise while the toddler mows the carpet 24/7. Well… he and Tammy, in true form, rolled in with the best gift ever for Colette.
