How I shopped for Christmas all year long

Christmas of 2015 was almost a disaster for us. We were hit by two major bills to pay and the second bill took all of our shopping money we had set aside for our two kids. Fortunately, family and friends came to the rescue, giving gifts to us and the children. While I am extremely grateful that our Christmas gift-giving tradition for the children was saved, I resolved that this year would be different. This year I would actually put into action a plan I’d been thinking of using for some time now: Shopping for Christmas all year long.

This kinda idea is not new. I had heard of several families shopping for Christmas all year long in order to ease their financial burden every December. Doing this would also keep them from giving in to the temptation to splurge now and regret it later.

After I made this decision, I put together my strategy. I would buy each child one gift for every month. And, in December, we would also buy their stocking stuffers.

I knew that if I was going to go through with this, I would need to plan ahead. So I decided to enforce a few guidelines to follow:

1. Keep a list of what the kids want on hand. I use the “Memo” feature on my Android phone and this allows me to keep important notes and reminders handy if I ever need them. Last year, the kids put together their Christmas list. We assured them that if they didn’t get all the stuff on that list last year, there was always next year. Now it’s next year! And having their wish list with me makes it easier to figure out what to get them.

2. Don’t put a price limit on all gifts. At first I thought maybe it would be better to put a $20 spending limit on the kids’ gifts, but then I realized that would limit the variety of gifts I could shop for them. I decided to use whatever amount of money I had available for this. At the same time, the amount spent on each gift ended up being slightly different for each child. For one month, for example, each gift cost $30. For another month, one gift that was on the wish list was $25, while the other gift was $13.

3. Don’t try to do this alone. I knew I could not be the only one shopping for the kids. My husband always enjoyed buying them Christmas gifts. So I decided that we could take turns buying their gifts.

4. Keep a list of gifts bought so far. With 12 months of shopping to do, it could very easily happen that I’d end up buying a gift I’d already bought months before. To avoid this, I kept a list of gifts that I bought so far. Of course, I also removed items I got from their wish lists, but I still kept track of everything so I had a good idea of the balance of gifts for each child.

After the year started and this plan was carried out, I began to see just how convenient it was to shop for the kids’ Christmas gifts all year. I knew I would not be able to take advantage of Black Friday deals or huge sales on Christmas Eve since we were already going to have the kids’ Christmas gift shopping done, but that was something I was willing to do without. Also, I could still shop for other family, relatives and friends on Black Friday or Christmas Eve. My daughter took advantage of Black Friday deals, and it was fun to take her shopping.

One thing I didn’t foresee was the possibility of the gifts being stolen. Although we have a neighborhood watchgroup, crime was still pretty bad in my area. (Crime is really bad everywhere during the Christmas season.) I also worried about something disastrous happening that would destroy the gifts, like a fire. I just had to push these fears aside and carry out the plan. Fortunately, nothing happened to them and they were safely stored away until Christmastime.

Another thing I did not expect to happen? Running out of room for the gifts! By October, I had quite the pile of wrapped Christmas presents stored away, but because it was all in a pile, some of the other gifts at the bottom were starting to get crushed. 

 
So I used another storage space for the gifts and that solved that problem.

As the months passed and the gift pile built up, I started to get excited over the prospect of the children enjoying so many Christmas gifts this year. This would be the first Christmas ever that they had so many gifts! I know, it’s only 12 gifts for each child, but that’s still a lot compared to other Christmases. I also felt secure knowing that no matter what financial disaster awaited us in December, our children would still have a nice number of Christmas gifts waiting for them under the tree. (And, fortunately, a financial disaster did not strike during this month. My husband’s truck did break down, but a friend loaned us her vehicle until a he is able to get a new vehicle to drive for work.)

Along the way, I learned a few good tips should I ever decide to do this again:

•    Pay attention to what the kids ask for.

If a child mentions he wishes he had a particular toy or if your daughter stares longingly at something in a store and you are not able to buy it for them just yet, add it to the list as a gift to purchase next month. I often mentally added things to the kids’ list as they came out on the market or the kids mentioned that it was something they wanted to have.

•    Wrap the gifts as soon as possible.

My kids have a knack for finding gifts I try to hide away. Whether it’s Christmas or a birthday gift, they have a radar that leads them right to it. My son discovered the gift pile of Christmas gifts in March. Fortunately, they were all wrapped, so he wasn’t able to see what they were. If there’s no Christmas wrapping paper, use plain-color wrapping paper available from the dollar store. And on that note…

•    Have LOTS of Christmas wrapping paper on hand.

By August, I ran out of Christmas wrapping paper. I had used what rolls of wrapping paper we had left from last year but it had not lasted for all 12 gifts. So just as soon as it was available again, I was sure to buy some extra rolls of Christmas wrapping paper!

•    And have extra boxes on hand, too!

Because we often order online, we had a nice supply of small boxes available to wrap gifts in. For one gift, however, I had a hard time finding a box to wrap it in! I ended up taping two boxes together to “make” a box for it. (I also had to get creative in using a side of a cardboard box to make a box for my sister’s Christmas gift, too.) Many gifts had their own packaging, but for things like stuffed animals or art supplies, it’s a good idea to have a box to put them in!

•    Be flexible with gift expenses.

While it would be nice to be able to buy the kids an expensive gift every month of the year, our budget just doesn’t allow for that kind of thing. For a long time, we were really struggling. But as long as I was able to buy them a gift – even if it was just a $5 gift – then at least I had something. One month, I was able to spend $30 on each gift. Another month, I only had $20 available for their gifts, meaning a $10 gift for each of them. That’s just the way it is. (And here is a perfect example of why yearlong Christmas shopping is a great idea: It helps alleviate the financial burden and stress of shopping for more than one child in just one month.)

•    Be firm about saving the gifts for Christmas.

As mentioned earlier, my son discovered the hidden gift pile before Christmas got here. He got so excited that he wanted to open the gifts right then and there. While I almost gave in to that request because I knew how happy the gifts would make him, I had to check myself and practice some restraint. I had to tell my son that these were Christmas gifts and that if he was patient, he would have 12 Christmas presents waiting for him under the tree on Christmas morning. If he opened them now, he wouldn’t have so many gifts. He was not happy about not getting something clearly with his name on it, but in the end decided that it would be worth the wait. (And it was!)

•    Hold on to receipts

I saved all of the receipts in case something had to be returned. I also occasionally kept tabs on how much was spent on gifts each month. (If I do this again, I will want to keep track of the cost to get a better idea of how much was spent on their Christmas presents. The receipts could be used for this purpose, as well.)

This was also a challenging experiment because, sometimes, I really had to weigh which gift a child wanted the most out of all the others on the list. I wanted to get them the items that were super-important to them, and not just another thing they “wanted” to own. The gifts had to have value, so I had to be selective in ensuring they got something they really, really wanted.

Also, some of the items on their wish list were expensive. For example, my daughter really wanted a book that was a collector’s item. Unfortunately, despite my search across the Internet, I could not find a copy of the book for under $80. That was a little outside of my budget. My husband suggested I just save the money I would have spent on a gift for one month and add it to next month’s so that I could get her the book, but that meant veering off course from buying the kids a Christmas present for every month of the year. And that was my plan! That was the whole reason I started doing this. Just one Christmas gift a month for each child. So I stuck to my plan, even if it meant I could not buy the expensive things. But maybe I’ll take his suggestion into serious consideration for next year, since my son also has some expensive items on his wish list as well.

And, finally, this was not just something I did for the kids. For four months out of the 12, I also bought my husband a Christmas present. He was just as excited to get more than one gift from me as the kids were to get 12 gifts from their parents.

This was a fun challenge and quite an interesting shopping experience. It definitely made some extra money available for one very special gift in December (my son got a new bike and my daughter got a portable DVD player – expensive gifts we might not have been able to get them if we also had to buy a few other Christmas presents for them). The extra money also meant we were able to get gifts for family members too – something else we often struggled with.

The question remains, though: Is this a frugal method of Christmas shopping? It can be. You don’t need to spend a lot of money on Christmas presents. Also, shopping for Christmas all year long also means saving money up for expensive gifts, which would make the gift-giving experience all the more awesome for a child. It could also work as a way to get one special gift for someone in the whole family during the whole year or even making something for each family member in the months leading up to Christmas.

I am still not sure if I’ll be doing this again next year, or even if I’ll do this again in a different way. The kids had a lot of fun counting off each gift they opened and they were, of course, very excited about the prospect of opening 12 gifts on Christmas morning. We will see if I do this again next year or if it will be our thing now. But it was definitely a fun thing to do the first time around and I am glad we did it.  

A better Christmas for 2016

The year 2016 has certainly been a challenge. There have been so many ups and downs this year. But I am grateful that at least ONE thing went right this year: My quest to ensure that my kids had a better Christmas gift experience compared to last year.

Last year, three days before Christmas, we ran into a financial hurdle that took all the money we had set aside to buy our kids Christmas presents. I blogged about that here. I also blogged about our “Christmas miracle” that happened as a result of it. Thanks to that miracle, we had some extra gifts to give to the kids for Christmas last year – instead of just the one I had already gotten for them. Here is the pic of our tree with the extra gifts:

I am extremely grateful to the people who helped us give our kids a nice Christmas last year, but even so, I had vowed to take matters into my own hands this year, and that’s exactly what I did. And I am happy that I was able to pull it off, too!

So what did I do? I shopped for my kids’ Christmas gifts all year long. My strategy was to buy each of them a Christmas gift for every month of the year, and it worked! (I will share that experience in a blog post real soon.) This morning, my kids opened their 12 Christmas presents. Yep, they had twelve. One gift for every month of the year. Yay! We did it! Woo-hoo!

Here is the picture of our tree with this year’s gifts – as well as extra gifts by the stockings! There are also other gifts we received from friends and family.

I am just so happy that I was able to do that sort of thing for them this year. I am not sure if this will be “our thing” now. I need to think more on that.

The reason why I am not sure if I want to do this again is because I don’t want my kids to think that Christmas is all about gifts or even having lots of gifts. Mostly, I want them to see Christmas as a time of gathering with your family and loved ones and sharing the joy of the holiday season. Christmas is a time for giving, sharing the joy of being with the people you love, and helping those who are less fortunate. I don’t want my kids to be materialistic or expect lots of presents every single Christmas. So I have to think more on this before doing it again.

Also, I would rather give them EXPERIENCES instead of gifts. Like taking them somewhere fun or doing something special together. I want to give my kids memories, not stuff.

So we’ll see what happens. Maybe when Jesse is a little older he will appreciate Christmas experiences more than Christmas gifts.

We had a really nice Christmas Eve yesterday and also a very nice Christmas morning today. As usual, I was the first one awake this morning. I spent the quiet time taking pictures, enjoying my coffee and playing a game on my phone. I also logged in at Facebook to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. Then Jesse woke up and he woke up his dad and Jennifer. With A Christmas Story on TV and both adults armed with coffee, it was time for all of us to open our gifts. Yep, we went right to the gifts instead of the stockings! LOL It was Jen’s turn to be Santa this year so she wore the Santa hat. There was much surprise and excitement over the gifts as everybody opened them. One of the things Jen got was a Supernatural Funko POP Sam and Dean action figure. Originally, I was just going to get her Sam, but then I realized that the brothers need to be together, so I got her Dean as well. She held up the box containing Sam and said, “I got a Sam!” Jesse got the Impala car model. When Jen saw that, her face lit up and she said, “You got the Impala!” Jen also got the movie Thirteen Ghosts and she was REALLY happy about that. She said she’s been asking for it for years! Well, I’m glad we finally got it for her. One of the things Jesse got was art supplies and he opened the paint set and painted a couple of pictures. The one at the top of this post is one of the pictures he painted. Jen was also happy with the sketchbook she got and Jesse immediately threw on his new Spiderman PJs. He has been spending the day playing with all of his Christmas presents.  Both kids were really happy with all of their gifts.

As for me, there was a BIG box wrapped and I was hoping it was a new printer. And it was! Yay! Here is a pic of me with that big wrapped box:

I also got a snow globe, candle with a Christmas tree scent, Amazon gift card, a puppet craft that Jesse made for me, a T-shirt and a stress toy.

I LOVE the T-shirt! It was a gift that Jen got me. Here is a pic of it:

  

Ah, she knows me so well. LOL I don’t like drama!

After all the gifts, I made breakfast. It was cinnamon rolls, bacon, and, for me and my husband, eggs in a basket. We all sat at the table enjoying our Christmas breakfast and it was a really nice time.

Then some of us went back to sleep! LOL Jesse was awake, of course, to play with all his new toys. I guess he was too excited to sleep because he also got a new bike.

Christmas this year was just awesome. It has been a really great day and I am glad we were able to give the kids stuff they wanted for Christmas this year. Of course, I had been a little sad because I missed my parents and was thinking about them a lot. (I have been thinking about them quite a bit lately.) I am glad I was able to survive the holidays without an emotional breakdown like I had that one year when I just cried for days when Christmas after my mother’s death came around. This year was better. I was even strong enough this year to do the cookie run! Still, I was thinking about both of my parents a lot and missing them. But I am sure they were there for all of us in spirit on Christmas Day.  

Adopting a family for Christmas

Every December, I make it a point to help a family for Christmas. It could be giving them money to buy Christmas gifts or helping them get a tree or even giving gifts to their kids. But this year, I got an idea for something to do to help a family that’s struggling.

Earlier this month, I was chatting with someone on Facebook who shared with me that they were having some financial problems. The way it looked, they wouldn’t be able to get their kids any Christmas presents. I soon made it my mission to get some presents for the children.

Well, while I was out shopping with Jennifer today – so that she could buy Christmas gifts for her friends – an idea struck. Why not buy gifts for the mom and dad that we were helping, too? Just get gifts for the whole family!

In other words, “adopt” them for Christmas.

When I was a kid, my family struggled every Christmas. I’m the third of seven children so it’s not like there was a whole lot of money available for Christmas. My family struggled a lot so Christmases were hard. But some years, my family would be “adopted” and some other people got us Christmas gifts.

I was thinking today, why not do that this year? I could just buy a Christmas present for everyone in a family!

I shared this idea with Jennifer and she thought it was a good one. So we “adopted” this family for Christmas and got them all a gift. I felt so great about doing this that I told Jen, “I want to do this every year!”

So that’s going to be a new Christmas tradition for us. And we already know what family we plan to adopt next year!

So thankful for our Christmas miracle!

If there is one thing I have learned this year, it is this: Just because I have been doing something the same way for so long, that doesn’t mean I must always do it that way. No, there has to be room for trying something new. For growth and learning. For “thinking outside the box.” Something happened a few days before Christmas that made me realize that maybe the same old method of Christmas shopping for my kids just isn’t a good system to rely on anymore.

What we usually do when Christmas shopping for the kids is I get them a few things earlier in the month – usually on Cyber Monday, since I prefer to shop online, but I also did something different in that regard this year. But, yeah, I usually get them a few things. Then, later on in December, my husband buys the rest of their Christmas gifts. (It’s pretty cool that we take turns with it!) But this year, he wanted the kids to have a more “memorable” Christmas. He suggested I buy them one “big” gift and he’ll get a couple of other “big” gifts too. No little gifts like pajamas or books or stuff like that. He wanted it to be different this year. So I agreed to it and bought the kids their most-asked-for (AKA "the items they’ve been bugging me to get them all year") gifts, along with a stocking stuffer. Little did we know that this Christmas was definitely going to be a memorable one, and that was NOT going to be based on the gifts they found under the tree!

Let’s stop for a minute to cover how my Christmas shopping experience went. And let me first say that I’m a bargain hunter! If I can score a good deal on an expensive item, then I’m all over that!

First, I waited for the right day. Since most of the shopping I was planning to do was online, I waited for Cyber Monday to shop for Christmas. It was worth the wait: Not only was an item marked down 50% but I also got FREE SHIPPING -- a perk many online retailers were providing on Cyber Monday.

I also comparison shopped. One way to find the best deals on the items I was planning to buy was by comparison shopping. I check prices on an item at different stores. I also kept an eye out for any coupons or "bonus savings" being offered on an item. For one Christmas present I bought, I noticed a site was offering it at a 20% discount price. I checked a store where I could buy it locally and it was being sold at full price BUT if I bought the item through the store's website (Barnes & Noble), it was on sale for 50% off! That's a nice slice of awesome!

Another thing is I didn't settle. There was one item I wanted to buy for my son this year that was something I was NOT ready to forget about. It was really bugging me to get this thing for him. The problem is, I had a hard time finding it at a price I could afford. Although it's an old item, ordering it from Amazon or Barnes & Noble meant getting a shipping cost that was MORE than the item price! Not cool! I didn't want to pay an arm and a leg for shipping. I was willing to pay a reasonable price but not pay more for shipping than the product price! So I kept looking. I decided to hit local stores. Unfortunately, none of them had it. BUT, when I went to Target.com, I was able to buy this item from the website. Awesome Thing #1: It was at a discount price. Awesome Thing #2: Ordering from the site meant FREE SHIPPING! Yay! If I drove to another town to get this item from a Target store, it would cost more than the price on the website. But ordering it from the site meant a lower price AND free shipping! I was stoked to come across this and it was definitely worth the extra time it took to find a deal that I was happy with.

Okay, now, back to what happened a few days before Christmas.

Gee, I thought getting hit by the cable company was bad! We got hit by another company with an even larger bill to pay…three days before Christmas. We could NOT get an extension on this bill. We were forced to pay it. And the amount that we paid was almost all of the money we had for our kids’ Christmas presents as well as groceries for next week. So we were looking at not being able to get the kids anything else for Christmas. They had 1 present from Mom and Dad under their tree (along with a gift they got each other, as well as gifts from family friends).

This was really depressing. I was SO upset! That stupid company ruined my kids’ Christmas!

I shared about this on Facebook. I had felt so down and out about it that I even said I had lost faith in the spirit of helping others. I mean, why would people DO that? They were right up there with people who break into houses on Christmas Eve and steal all the presents! They were right up there with the Grinch!

I have some AMAZING friends and relatives who took the time to offer support and some suggestions on Facebook on how to turn this thing around. A lot of people I know have been in just such a situation before and they shared some really helpful information on how to handle this. My kids have never been in this situation. There was always more than one Christmas gift from Mom and Dad under the tree. So I didn’t know how to handle it. How to talk to them about it or what to do to make our Christmas happy despite this setback. I mean, even with 7 kids, my parents STILL managed to get us all more than one Christmas present every Christmas! I remember that some years, we even had a family sponsor us and get us all gifts for Christmas! Heck, a whole fire department did, one year! And when Jennifer and I were on our own and I was struggling to put food on the table, I still got her more than one Christmas present that year, because I worked as a babysitter and cleaning a friend’s house! This kinda situation was completely new for me. It wasn’t new for my husband – he comes from a family of 6 kids and he’s been there – but I really didn’t know what to do. So all of those comments and messages from people REALLY helped a lot. I soon had a plan on things we could do to make the day bright all the same.

But I think God had another idea. And I think I have God to thank for what happened because, on that night, when I was feeling so low about all of this, I did what I usually do during my darkest times: I prayed. As I prayed, I acknowledged that Christmas is not all about gifts. And I understood that this was a good opportunity for my kids to appreciate that Christmas is so much more than about getting presents. But I said, you know, it would still be nice if they had more than one gift from Mom and Dad. And I just gave the whole mess over to God. I asked Him for help and guidance and just the strength to get through this.

After that, I felt a little better. One thing I kept thinking about that night, though, was the movie A Christmas Carol. The version with Patrick Stewart is my favorite, and it’s the one we own. I remembered in that movie how the Cratchit family enjoyed Christmas despite having nothing. The savvy Mrs. Cratchit still managed to get the family a goose for their Christmas dinner, and we at least had a nice ham for our Christmas dinner. The family was all together for Christmas and WE were all together for Christmas. The family sat together on Christmas Day feeling blessed to have each other and appreciating the little things. And we would do that, too! And at least the kids still got to make and decorate gingerbread men just like they do every Christmas. And we also had a Christmas breakfast of cinnamon rolls to look forward to with our usual movie of A Christmas Story. So some of the usual traditions were with us despite the lack of gifts.

But then something pretty awesome happened. And I’m starting to think that my saying “yes” to this very first thing is what allowed the other awesome things to come our way.

One of my fellow GSP authors saw my Facebook post and contacted me. He wanted to be a “secret Santa” and give us an Amazon gift certificate so we could get the kids another gift. At first, I was not sure about accepting his gift. Usually, I have this whole “We can take care of ourselves and we don’t NEED any help!” kinda attitude. I’m all for being self- sufficient! And, anyway, I didn’t post that on Facebook hoping someone would step up and help us out. I needed ideas on what to do! But I had a strong feeling that I should accept his gift. He wanted to do something nice for our kids. And I didn’t want to hurt his feelings by turning him away. So I accepted the gift from him and his wife. I used it to get the kids yet another thing they had on their Christmas list. (Thanks, Paul and Dorothy!)

And I think that by being open to someone’s kindness and generosity, it allowed for the other things to happen, too.

One of my sisters also heard about what happened. She knew I was really upset. So she and my sister-in-law (her partner) sent us a gift basket. I was so surprised when I opened the door and saw the delivery lady there with that gift. At first, I thought they had the wrong house! I even looked at the label, saw my name, and said, “That’s me.” Wow! I was really touched. The gift basket was filled with goodies, too. Turns out Jen knew about the surprise and made sure I was at the door to receive it. What a lovely gesture! I was so touched, I had tears in my eyes. (Thanks, Millie and Allison!)

Then we got another surprise gift. Soon enough, there was someone else at our door: One of my daughter’s best friends. She had a Christmas gift for my daughter – and a family gift for us, too! How nice! I was surprised and also very touched. I ran outside and, despite the rain, went to my friend who was in her car and hugged her, thanking her for the gift and wishing them all a Merry Christmas. (Thanks, Kim!)

Then another awesome thing happened, too. My husband was able to sell something and he now had a good amount of money available to buy our kids another Christmas present! He actually got them each 2 other gifts. And he was able to get me something, too! (I had already bought his gift earlier in the month.) So I was very happy that happened and what wonderful timing for it, too! Lots of stores were having sales on Christmas Eve, which made it lots easier for him to get stuff. (Thanks, Mr. Buyer!)

So Christmas was saved for us, after all. I consider this to be our “Christmas miracle.” It was certainly a time when my prayer was answered and we learned just how much we are loved by certain people in our lives. This has helped us to appreciate our friends and family all the more and be very grateful for when we are blessed in such an amazing way. I certainly feel that these things happened for a reason and I know that the true value of these blessings should be cherished and remembered. In the past, I have helped other families who have struggled with Christmas, and it was nice to be on the receiving end of that help this year. People really came through for us and we are grateful to them all. I am also grateful to another family friend who stopped by on Christmas Day with more gifts!

As to changes to our routine, I have decided to move forward in shopping for Christmas all year long, and not just in December. That way, we can avoid financial hits like we had this year. (I guess I shouldn’t be surprised we had TWO financial hits in December this year. This year has been awful!) Also, I am DEFINITELY going to make sure we have a savings account next year. As it is, we have no savings! But next year is THE year we create our savings so we can have something to fall back on in the event of another financial disruption.

This year’s Christmas was amazing and we were definitely blessed. I hope that by next Christmas, I can spread that sort of feeling to another family, too. Because it’s a great feeling!

We got Grinched!

On Friday, I had some bad news for my kids after they got out of school: The Grinch had struck at our home. No, I don’t mean the band a friend of mine used to be a member of. I mean this dude:

Recently, someone in the neighborhood watchgroup called whoever it was that cut the cord on his Christmas lights a “Grinch.” For us, the Grinch was in the form of the cable company. Apparently, we had an old fee that my husband was not aware of (he pays the cable bill so he is pretty much in charge of what’s up with the cable account). And instead of sending a reminder, instead of posting one of those little red shut-off notices on our doorknob, they cut both our cable and Internet. That was their delightful way of wishing us a Merry Christmas.

I was pretty upset over that. The BIG thing that bothered me was that they did it without warning. It was, like, BOOM! Internet and cable gone all of a sudden.

But I was just glad I had taken care of what I needed to do on the Internet that day before it happened. The kids, however, had not yet had a chance to do anything on the Internet that day, because they were in school. Then they had to come home and find out there was no cable and no Internet. What a crummy way for them to start Winter Break!

I have a picture on my phone of a dog sticking out its tongue and at the bottom it says “Meanie head.” I wished I could’ve sent that picture to the cable company. But I was tempted to storm into the office and scream at them after Jesse saw for himself he could not get access to his Internet game site and started to cry. I wanted to yell at them. “I hope you’re happy! You made my little boy cry!”

You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch.

But fortunately, we are well-stocked in DVDs, so of course we were able to watch movies instead. One movie was Hugo. I remember when Jen finished reading that book, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, she encouraged me to read it too. It’s one of the books I have read in a day. It is a really good book and the movie is good, too. We watched it twice! Love that movie! (It’s not often we see a movie based on the book and end up loving both the book and the movie. For me, White Oleander comes to mind. Jen and I agree both the book and the movie for The Book Thief were also good.)

Also fortunately, the project Jennifer has been working on for days does not require Internet to finish. So she was still able to work on her project. (I don’t know what it is because it’s Top Secret. It’s something she is making for me for Christmas.) Also, one of Jen’s best friend’s had a sleepover here this weekend, so they mostly spent time hanging out and doing “sleepover stuff.” They also watched a movie on a portable DVD player.

And at least I have the Google, Gmail and Facebook/Messenger apps on my phone. So I was still able to have access to them. As well as Pinterest and Twitter (though I can’t see the profile changes Pinterest has made. I have to log in at the computer to see it, so I don’t know yet what is up with that). The thing of it is, though, that I HATE typing on the tiny keys on my phone, so I kept things brief and tried to avoid answering emails that were going to have lengthy answers or include links.

Some other good things came out of this experience. We have a lot of board games that were available for us to play. And we also have A LOT of books. In fact, Jesse has a stack of books from the library he still needed to read, so he tackled those over the weekend. He read 2 of them. I also did a lot of reading. In fact, I read 100 pages of an ARC of a new sci-fi novel that came out on December 1st that I am reviewing for Night Owl Reviews. I don’t normally read ARC’s of books, but I love to read sci-fi, and this one sounded like a good story. I was right, too: The novel is REALLY GOOD!! (Now I’m beginning to think I should not pass up on reading ARC’s anymore, because I’d miss out on a good story!)

Aside from reading, Jesse was still able to play games on the computer. (That is mostly all he does on the computer: He plays games. For Internet, he plays ROBLOX and Animal Jam.) He played GTA but he also learned how to play Solitaire. I actually had to reintroduce myself to playing Solitaire because I have not played that game for so long. I’d forgotten how addictive it is! Jesse saw me playing it and wanted to check it out. So I taught Jesse how to play Solitaire. He needed some coaching as he played but pretty soon he got the hang of it. He got really excited when he won.

I also spent some time organizing my files on the computer, updating stuff, and clearing out pictures on my phone to free up storage space. 

So, yeah, our cable/Internet got cut out of the blue, but we survived. And I’m glad the cable is on in time for us to see the Doctor Who Christmas episode.

I have a love/hate relationship with the cable company. I love what they offer us, but I HATE their inflated prices and sucky customer service. We actually plan to use an alternative source of cable in the near future, though we DO still need Internet. And it kinda sucked that they just cut us off like that. Not cool to do it without warning! But we got through it. They tried to knock us off our feet with that proverbial punch in the gut, but we got back up, dusted ourselves off, and STILL managed to have a good weekend anyway!

And I have come across stories from people who the Grinch has also visited, too. Some instances are much worse than ours and I’m glad ours only involved something minor like this. My heart and prayers go out to the people I know who are faring much worse.

Oh, what fun

My plan for today was to take my kids Christmas shopping. I figured we’d go to one store, they’d buy a gift for their dad, then we’d go home.

But something else entirely ended up happening!

As I was driving them through the terrible rainy weather we had today, Jen let me know she was not just planning to shop for her dad today. She also planned on shopping for her friends. I knew she wanted to shop for her friends this weekend, because the next week is her last week of school before Winter Break and she wanted time to be able to give her friends her gifts at school, but I had not expected it to take place on this trip.

Well, it did. And we ended up going to more than one store!

In fact, we ended up shopping at 4 different stores.

Jumping in and out of my car in the downpour then appearing at the store entrance drenched from the rain was a real hassle. But it’s not anything unexpected when it comes to Christmas shopping. For some reason, whenever we go Christmas shopping, it’s raining! (Which is why I prefer to do the bulk of my Christmas shopping online. No fun driving around in the rain or snow!) At one point, after I got into the car at store #3 once again soaked from the rain, I joked, "What does this remind me of? Oh, yeah. Christmas shopping LAST year!"

Then there was the nice little adventure of finding a place to park. That, too, was a hassle, but we got through it without incident.

Even so, we did have a nice time with their Christmas shopping. I had to remind Jen to keep track of her expenses so that she would not go broke before getting all the gifts she needed. I was also sure to remind her to look for deals on items and try to find something that seemed like the “right” gift for that person. She wanted to buy 2 gifts for 1 friend but I told her I didn’t think that was a good idea because it wasn’t fair if she got 1 friend 2 gifts and everybody else 1 gift.

As to Jesse, he was shopping for his dad as well as his teacher. Fortunately, with the little money he had saved up from collecting cans earlier this year, he was able to get both gifts with some money left over. He’ll be using that to buy a gift for his sister. (I consulted with each of them in private to figure out what they wanted to buy each other and plan to take care of that tomorrow.)

After we got home, they got busy wrapping the gifts and they now have them ready to take to school on Monday. Their gifts for their dad are wrapped and under our tree.

I may take them out shopping again tomorrow, but I also think it might be better if Jen goes with her dad tomorrow (since she still has to get her gift for me) and I just take Jesse to get his sister’s gift. At least that way, it’s only one stop for shopping – and this time for sure!

Gingerbread houses

Recently, on Facebook, I have noticed a lot of people posting anti-Christmas posts. Those posts are mainly about how we should not be decorating for Christmas, shopping for Christmas, or even THINKING about Christmas, until it’s actually December. While I understand the reason behind this sentiment, I also understand that everybody has their own thing set up for a reason. And, ya know, stuff’s gonna happen.

Like today, for example.

Yesterday, when I was driving the kids home from Springfield, I noticed a house that already had Christmas lights and decorations up. “What the heck! It’s still November!” I muttered. But, when my daughter told me that she wanted to make a gingerbread house this weekend, I decided, “Go for it!” Really, there’s no reason to put it off. And it’s not gonna hurt anybody, either.

One of her best friends spent the night last night and so the two of them each created a gingerbread house.

Here’s a picture of both houses:

Here is a pic of the house created by her friend:

And here is the house that Jen built:

Jesse also got in on the action. At first, he was making a gingerbread house. Unfortunately, the roof kept collapsing. Despite Jen’s help to try to fix his house and my assurances that he could do it, he deep-sixed the project.

Jesse ended up making a tower instead:

I am glad the kids did a fun project this weekend. They sure enjoyed eating their creations up! And I am looking forward to making gingerbread MEN, too, but when it’s more of December.