Annual Christmas Baking/Shopping

Every year on the Friday after Thanksgiving, we bake Christmas cookies, make fudge and other cutesy Christmas food to give to friends and neighbors.  Last year I ruined that tradition since we needed about 1000 sugar cookies made for the wedding that was 5 days away......oops. HA!

This year, we made Hot Cocoa Balls, Chocolate Sugar Cookies (NOT recommended, they are gross), and regular sugar cookies.  I'm hoping to do some chocolate dipped pretzels with cute Christmas sprinkles too, but we'll see if I get around to that.......

We baked most of the day, from noon to about 9pm.  I thrououghly enjoyed it, obviously, since I was the only one around still decorating the cookies by the time they were done.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving we always take a shopping trip to get some Christmas shopping done.  The stores are generally empty on this day, because all the fools who were out for black friday are still sleeping.  And there are still some really great deals if you are willing to drive to a few stores.  There is nothing on the planet of earth that I need bad enough to wait in lines at midnight or to save $40 on....I think Black Friday is absolutely the dumbest thing on planet earth.  But whatever.  I officially wait until this day to break out any cheesy holiday tees.  I chose the Happy Who-lidays with Cindy Lou Who from the original Grinch by Dr. Seuss.  Hopefully I will find some more to add to my collection this year.

Our shopping trip was very much successful, I am waiting on 3 online orders and I want to pick up a 5 more small items when I have an evening off to get to the store and then we are completely DONE. YAY!  I've started wrapping gifts so there is something besides empty space under the tree.  I just love having the presents wrapped up and looking pretty well ahead of time!

Also, for the 2 people who read this......I'm trying to start a collection of Nativity themed ornaments.  They don't need to be overly expensive, I just want each one to be different.  If you are out doing Christmas shopping and happen upon some that look cute and aren't 15 dollars a piece, let me know please so I can travel to this establishment and buy them!

The countdown to anniversary is on!  Just 4 more days til I get a quiet weekend away!  Hopefully the Husband's present will get here in the mail before then and hopefully I'll have some inspiration for the poem to go with that just doesn't seem to be coming to me...

Christmas here we come!

Yes i know it's only the day after thanksgiving....well technically it's 2 days now since this is after midnight, but don't get technical with me, i don't like it-i know it's still early, but i'm so ready to decorate the house and tree and wrap presents and bake christmasy things and do a million crafts and wear sweaters and drink hot cocoa and watch christmasy movies. and listen to christmas music-which i have already been secretly doing for about a week now-it makes me feel warm and fuzzy and i happen to like it-i pulled out all of my christmas music for the piano too-it is my favorite music to play by far!  i can't wait to have my own place to decorate next year! i have so many cool things that i keep finding on clearance or am inheriting from others and i am SO ready to have a place to show them off!  next year better come quick!
thanksgiving was good-we had a tiny group of 25 this year, so everything was ready wayyyy earlier than normal, but it was kinda nice cause we had lots of time to just chill and be. i was definitely ready for everyone to go home by 2 though lol. i know i'm such a party pooper, but it's just too much comotion for me, i love my family, but i can only do so much!  small doses is better for my sanity. i even got to webcam with josh for like an hour and a half in the evening and we talked on the phone while he was shopping in walmart-the booger bought something while he was on the phone with me and said it was a "perfect christmas present" so i am curious to see what he found! he is so very sweet, but it sounded mildly suspicious when he stopped mid sentence while talking on the phone, laughed and said, "babe i just found your christmas present, i'll call you in a sec after i buy it!" i think i might want to be mildly afraid. but i love him so i'm sure it will be awesome whatever it is!
today we decided to be super lazy and instead of keeping with the tradition of baking christmas goodies the day after thanksgiving, we instead watched a million episodes of criminal minds and late in the afternoon we ventured out to hobby lobby (yes, it was glorious) and found some super cool dealios and awesome fun things that i would just love to buy. i refrained however and only spent $20.00- i was a good girl! i bought some to die for wrapping paper that was $3 and i found these super cute letter pictures on clearance and bought them mostly for a wedding reception (yes it's early, and yes we're unofficial, but i feel gathering small things that have dual purpose is not criminal and a very good use of budgeting :) ) they hang from a ribbon and spell out "xoxo" and they are super uber cute and i love them, and they look SUPER awesome above my little photo collage of the man and i-by photo collage i mean the 4 pictures ever printed of the two of us, a birthday card, his valentines poem to me and several inspirational quotes bahahah probably need to get working on more pictures of the two of us-we royally suck at taking pictures of the two of us anywhere!
tomorrow we shall venture out to do our annual saturday christmas shopping-tracy, mom and i go every year and it is always a fun adventure-i will miss it next year when i can't come home, and this year we won't do quite so much since tracy has been so sick and uncomfortable-i feel so bad for her! hopefully the doctors can fix her soon so we can get her back in tip top shopping shape! and i think tomorrow i might be a sweet girlfriend and bake some goodies to send to the dorm for the man and jesse-maybe-if i'm feeling super crafty and house wifeish-which i may not since i made homemade rolls all by myself the other day for everyone to devour and leave me no leftovers-cool peeps-but i guess it is a compliment since they could have hated them and not eaten any! :) here's to happy shopping!

So i guess i'm 20 now?

Sunday was my birthday- a rather odd day, birthdays are usually odd to me. it was an okay day as far as birthday's go-other than the fact that i spent most of the day cleaning the house in preparation for thanksgiving, which is now 2 days away!  we had cheesecake at gramma's and i opened my family's gifts-they were very sweet! and after church was over i got to webcam with josh which greatly improved my day because i was feeling rather down about it-he always knows how to make me laugh! he even sent me a cute little video of him singing happy birthday! it was very sweet! and so many friends wished me a happy birthday! i am excited to actually spend a birthday with him next year though and leia has already informed me that we will all need to celebrate together-i am looking forward to it! should be fun! and now i must go clean some more, because mom is stressing out about thanksgiving now lol. tracy and james will be here tomorrow, and i think i'm going to try making some homemade rolls cause i hate the nasty frozen ones! hopefully this is a wonderful thanksgiving for everyone-i'm looking forward to it, but it certainly is not my favorite holiday of all!  i'm sure i will have an update after the big turkey day is over, but for now i'm done typing cause i just had like a million posts and my hands are tired lol!