Tidings of Joy

I love Christmas. This year I gave in and listened to Christmas music in November. Usually I refuse until after Thanksgiving is over. So....the results are in and I am now getting tired of hearing the same songs over and over. This means that next year I will hold to my usual and not listen until after Thanksgiving. So, I just wrapped my last present tonight and I don't have anything else to get...I think. Hopefully.

Now onto finishing up the Christmas baking and delivering that to the neighbors. I had the stomach flu this weekend and so I have been a bit hesitant to be cooking up a storm in case the queasiness should return mid frosting. I am a firm believer in rolling the dough out, cutting out the cookies, baking, frosting and sprinkling all in one night which is quite a to-do and can't be disrupted when it has begun. Maybe I will just stick with rice krispies for this year. I already made one round of cookies for my work cookie exchange (which I must say I think mine were the best) and that left me feeling a little less than excited about the idea of whipping up some more. So sorry if I only do rice krispies neighbors/friends/ward people. I am no Martha Stewart this late into the Christmas season. Once I have all of the presents wrapped all I want to do is have Christmas and open them. I don't like waiting to give them out because I stress about whether the giftees will like their gifts....all will be well I am sure. Teaching this year left me alot less time to plan things out than my usual dwelling and stewing on what would be the perfect gift for each person on my list.

Also, we had all of the White Elephant Gifts to think through and I don't know about you but sometimes picking those is more difficult than getting real presents. There are two things to consider when picking a White Elephant present: 1.) Is it supposed to be a serious, nice gift? As in will you have the only joke present and everyone will be secretly mad for you being invited and before you know it you are off the list for invites next year or 2.) If it is a joke gift kind of party, who will be there and could anyone be offended by your idea of a joke? So I had two real gift parties this year and one joke exchange and I managed to be able to figure out which was which before I got there. Yay for me! Here was the winner of our joke gift at the Ugly Sweater Party we went to at the Ivin's. I think I was mostly able to figure out that a joke gift would be okay because well....just look at what kind of party it was.

Josh and I in our sweet sweaters. Josh's was snagged from our local Goodwill women's section and with a little gold glitter glue it became just magical. I love it!

OH my elf hat. Hysterical!!!!

Here is the gem of a White Elephant Gift. It is an authentic white satin, lace, bead, ribbon and flower adorned wedding album. Um....we laughed the whole way home after we bought it. The best part wasn't even revealed until it was unveiled at the party. Inside of the heart in the middle was a little mystery button that was discovered on accident. When pushed the song Here Comes The Bride plays. Oh my heck! I about died, so funny.

Well, the Hills Finale is on so Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!